We love Mac OS X. We love the iWork suite. It is a set of stylish and simple to use tools that can easily produce great results. Plus, it has the right price tag to make it accessible for most users. There's a catch: although OS X supports RTL (Right to Left) text perfectly, iWork does not.
Back in August 2007 I published a list of defects I (and others) found in the iWork suite when trying to work in Hebrew. This page got a lot of page views and a lot of comments. In fact, if you google "iwork hebrew" or "iwork RTL" it's the second result. I sent a letter to the iWork product manager, but that didn't do much good.
Almost 3 years later, we are at the exact same spot. However, the demand for a decent office suite with proper RTL support is on the rise. It is probably the iPhone that drives the Apple brand popularity to new heights. There are even rumors suggesting that Microsoft might support RTL text in the 2010 Office for Mac suite.
Our friends at the mac-it forum decided it is high time to launch a campaign calling Apple to support RTL languages in iWork. The focus is on filling Apple's feedback forms. We are certain that they won't ignore thousands of requests. Maybe it won't happen right away, but it will promote this feature up the to-do list. Let them know there's a market that needs it.
Please take a minute and fill out this feedback form (the form is for Pages, there are forms for Keynote and Numbers as well if you'd like to be more specific). You are invited to send them a link to this page, summarizing the main issues.Please help us spread the word. Especially if you live in a country that uses RTL script, you are invited to write a post in your native language, calling the local Mac users to chime in.
