[XeTeX] RTL and twocolumn

[Musa Furber]

I sometimes end up using Klaus Legally's ArabTeX instead of XeLaTeX 
because of its `Arabized' versions of several basic document classes.

His implementation for RTL twocolumns (taken from altext.sty) works 
once it is wrapped in \makeatletter and \makeatother.

You can try it yourself if you want:

<<
\makeatletter
\def \a at outputdblcol {% part of output routine for Arabic mode
\if at firstcolumn \global\@firstcolumnfalse
	\global\setbox\@leftcolumn \box\@outputbox
\else \global\@firstcolumntrue
	\setbox\@outputbox \vbox {\hbox to\textwidth {%
		\hskip \columnwidth
		\hfil \vrule width\columnseprule \hfil
		\hbox to\columnwidth {\box\@leftcolumn \hss}%
		\hskip -\textwidth
		\hbox to\columnwidth{\box\@outputbox \hss}%
		\hskip \columnsep
		\hskip \columnwidth }}%
	\@combinedblfloats \@outputpage
	\begingroup \@dblfloatplacement \@startdblcolumn
	\@whilesw\if at fcolmade \fi
	{\@outputpage \@startdblcolumn }\endgroup
\fi}

\let \@outputdblcol \a at outputdblcol % for Arabic mode
\makeatother
 >>

Perhaps his classes could be adapted to work with XeLaTeX.

My apologies to the list if the above was patently obvious. I realize 
I'm slow on things; it was only yesterday that I found out how easy it 
is in TeXShop to wrap Arabic text within LaTeX commands: just select 
the text and choose the command from the list... or write your own.

At some point it might be useful to poll people for how XeTeX works 
with various packages for various languages, with possible problems and 
workarounds.

Regards,
Musa