Pagemaker, Graphics and Thai Characters

[Neale Hays <nhays -at- VNET -dot- IBM -dot- COM>]

Hi all,
        I'm hoping the collective wisdom of the list can provide a
solution to a problem that seems insoluble at the moment.

I'm currently involved with producing a very large document for a
software development project in Thailand.  Documentation is written
in English (SGML), translated to Thai, and imported (via some custom-built
conversion routines) into Pagemaker 5, running under Win/OS2 Warp.

In addition, Archanetic Thai Plus (a Pagemaker add-in) is used
to handle line wraps for the Thai language version since Thai script
does not use spaces between words - which makes line breaking something
of a challenge.

So far so good - the problem arises when we try to include a few simple
graphics (flow charts and so forth) which mix text and graphics.
The *only* graphics package we have been able to locate so far that
supports the Thai character set is MS-Powerpoint!!

Powerpoint will produce and print the graphics we need, but when they
are exported as Windows metafiles and imported into Pagemaker, Pagemaker
resolutely refuses to print when it hits the page containing the
graphic.  Note that this occurs only if the graphic contains Thai text.

Any ideas would be gratefully received as at the moment we are looking at
"cutting and pasting" in the traditional sense, with scissors and and
glue.

Many thanks,

Neale Hays
Technical Writer
TSC
Bangkok, Thailand

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