[OS X TeX] Typesetting classical Arabic commentary

[Musa Furber]

I found a possible, though primitive, solution to my question: 
unnumbered footnotes. A sample macro from comp.text.tex:

[...from here....]

% T Mark Ellison 26 Jun 1991
%
% This style file defines the command \nnfoottext
% which allows the user to at any time insert footnote
% text material without adding a footnote number
% to either the main page or the note.
%
% Sample Use:
%
%         .....
%         \begin{document}
%         .....
%         \nnfoottext{This is a witty and interesting
%         numberless footnote. Thank-you.}
%         .....
%         \end{document}
%
% This was originally developed for the acknowledgement
% notes similar to the style used by the journal
% Linguistic Inquiry. The code was adapted from the latex
% source.
%
\long\def\nnfoottext#1{\insert\footins{\footnotesize
     \interlinepenalty\interfootnotelinepenalty
     \splittopskip\footnotesep
     \splitmaxdepth \dp\strutbox \floatingpenalty \@MM
     \hsize\columnwidth \@parboxrestore
    \edef\@thefnmark{}
    \edef\@currentlabel{}\@makefntext
     {\rule{\z@}{\footnotesep}\ignorespaces
       #1\strut}}}

[....to here....]

A simple macro

\newcommand{\cmt}[2]{#1\nnfoottext{\textbf{(#1)} #2}}

lets me write things like

	\cmt{This}{i.e., that thing I am about to write}

which ends up as

	(This) i.e., that thing I am about to write

in the footnotes. It needs some tailoring to work with paragraphs, but 
is at least a start.

I would still appreciate suggestions from list members.

Regards,
Musa

On 26 Aug 2004, at 11:38, Musa Furber wrote:

> My current project is a translation of a classic law primer from 
> Arabic. In the future, I would like to add commentary to the complete 
> text.
>
> A typical Arabic commentary is of the format
> 	(A) abcdef (B) abcdef ...
> where the primary text is printed within parenthesis and the 
> commentary without.
>
> It is common to have the primary text printed alone in the margin and 
> the commentary (along with the primary text) within the main text 
> block.
>
> I looked at LEDMAC. From what I can tell, I could use LEDMAC for this 
> if I can turn off line numbering, footnote reference numbers, and 
> print the entire basic text (chunk by chunk) in the lemas.
>
> Is there a better way to do this?
>
> Regards,
> Musa
>
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>

--------------------- Info ---------------------
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           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Post: <mailto:MacOSX-TeX at email.esm.psu.edu>