Re: [libreoffice-users] how many languages can LO support at the same time. . .

Hi,

Kracked_P_P---webmaster schrieb:
> The problem I have with "selling" LO to computer centers, both regular
> and ones that teach English as a second language, is how many languages
> can LO support at the same time.
>
> I am talking about two ways.  1 - usable dictionaries in the list.  2 -
> different languages you can change your menus to.
>
> The first one is the key for me.
>
> You have English, French, Spanish [3 regional versions], Italian, and 4
> or 5 other different language dictionaries, installed and enabled, in
> the Extension Manager.  How many of those languages are usable to the
> user writing documents in English and one or two other languages at a
> time, then someone else sits down and tried to use his or hers
> language[s] with English.  So how many installed and enabled languages
> can be used at the same time?   I was told there was a very small
> limited number.

I know no restriction. StarOffice was shipped with about fourteen 
languages and had over twenty Autotext variants. Why do not test it?

> Then the second is not much of a problem for me.  Yet, since you can
> switch between language packs and their help packs, how many can you
> install and be able to switch back and forth between English and the
> other non-English languages?

Some as above, I know no restriction.

> Of course, if a center worker needs to switch the menus back to English,
> or to their default settings, how easy is it if the person/worker does
> not read/speak the language the menu is currently in?

If the language is bound to the person, you can use different user 
settings and provide each user a prepared link to his special user settings.
For example on Windows
"C:\Program Files\LibreOffice 4\program\soffice.exe" 
-env:UserInstallation=file:///f:/SoftwareLO/user_DE

will launch LibreOffice with the user settings in folder 
f:/SoftwareLO/user_DE. And this different user settings can use 
different languages in UI. You can even run LibreOffice one time and 
have several calls to it with different user settings parallel.

  Is it possible to
> make a script to reset the "preferences" back to a default instead of
> some manual copy/paste-over some file?

Changing the UI from one language to another for the same user requires 
to restart LibreOffice.

> I do not use any language, other than American English, but others do
> need to deal with more than one language.  I met a lady a number of
> years ago.  She was from my area of the USA, but she worked in Israel as
> a travel "advisor".  She had to use several different packages of MS
> Office, since she needed to write in English, French, Hebrew, and one
> other language that I cannot remember the name of.  I told her that with
> the language support of LO she could use it to write in which ever
> language she needed to do.  I do not know if LO can write both English
> and Hebrew, since one is left to right and the other is right to left
> [if I remember correctly], but if the document was only in Hebrew, or
> English, or French, no problems.

It is no problem. For example, if the person likes to use an English 
keyboard layout, you can write a couple of macros to insert the special 
characters of French. You can bind them to short cut keys or provide a 
toolbar, where the icons show the character. So they can be used without 
using the Insert-Special-Character dialog and without remembering 
unicode code point.

If the whole document is in a foreign language, than provide a suitable 
document template, where the language is already set in the default 
template.

For switching inside a document you do not only have the already 
mentioned hard formatting methods, but you can define paragraph styles 
for each needed language and collect them into a document templates.

  One package can do what she needs to
> do.  We have the language support and the spell checking dictionaries to
> be added on with the language packs or via the Extension Manager and a
> lot of various language spell checking and other language aid
> extensions, sometimes several different ones for the same language.
>
> So multi-lingual users, multi-lingual computer center users, etc., etc.,
> need to know what the limits to the number of languages supported at the
> same time for LO.

I suggest, to test it. All those packages are free, and you can say 'I 
have tested it, it works at least with ...languages.'

Kind regards
Regina



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