japanese.sil: We have a latin-in-tate, but how come no tate-in-latin (tate-in-yoko)?

[ctrlcctrlv]

Yeah, I'm writing a Unicode request, so my main document is actually in English, but I need tate sections. :-(

Maybe I should just make multiple documents and glue them together?

[simoncozens]

It's not clear in the general sense how that ought to work:

abc abc abc abc d (Does h go here?)
ijk?            e
                f
                g (or here?)
lmn?

This is why you don't see mixed vertical and horizontal writing in many documents.

Perhaps you need to do your horizontal text, then make a separate frame and make that tate.

[ctrlcctrlv]

Well @simoncozens, there is precedent for what I'm asking, LuaTeX-ja:

http://ctan.math.illinois.edu/macros/luatex/generic/luatexja/doc/luatexja-en.pdf (see page 20)

By default, in LuaTeX-ja, this happens: (so, none of the above):

    d
    e
    f
abc g hij

You do it with \hbox and \tate, \yoko, etc.

I looked through the code and it doesn't seem possible to do a \tate to an \hbox in SILE.

But, if I use frames, it won't be automatically laid out like a TeX \hbox would be.

Or could it be? Is there a way to put a frame inside a frame? 🤔

[alerque]

Is there a way to put a frame inside a frame?

Not that also acts as a node in the current frame, no. But you can overlap frames to your heart's content. You can break the current frame at the cursor location or add a new "floating" frame at the current cursor position. Honestly though using frames for this sounds like the wrong tool for the job. I'm not familiar with tate issues in particular but being able to use an hbox wrapper sounds like a better plan.

[alerque]

There seems to be a \tate-chu-yoko. I'm pretty ignorant of CJK stuff but is that not what is being requested here?

It's broken (cf. #1226) but that seems like a different issue than not existing.

[ctrlcctrlv]

@alerque It's my understanding that \tate-chu-yoko is supposed to bring to mind the term 縦中横, which means, writing horizontal characters in vertical text. So, like this (right side):

[alerque]

Okay then carry on, that is just my ignorance of the domain.