Use a consistent language for headers and footers with babel

babelfancyhdrright-to-left

I have a Hebrew document with some English parts, and I am using the fancyhdr package to have headers and footers. I am using \begin{otherlanguage}{english} \end{otherlanguage} for my English parts. The problem is that since this environment basically does \selectlanguage{english}, if my text spans more than one page, then the headers and the footers also change to English, which I don't like. The main language is Hebrew, and the headers and footers should always be in Hebrew even if the page happens to be in English. Here's a MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{article}

\usepackage[bidi=basic, layout=tabular]{babel}

\babelprovide[main, import, alph=letters, Alph=letters]{hebrew}
\babelprovide[import]{english}

\babelfont[hebrew]{rm}{David CLM}
\babelfont[hebrew]{sf}{David CLM}

\usepackage{geometry}
\usepackage{blindtext}

\geometry{left=1cm, right=1cm, top=2cm, bottom=2cm}
\setlength{\headheight}{15pt}

\makeatletter
\newif\if@RTL \@RTLtrue
\makeatother

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\chead{שלום 1}
\lhead{}
\rhead{}
\lfoot{}
\cfoot{\thepage}
\rfoot{}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\begin{document}
\begin{otherlanguage}{english}
    \Blindtext[5][3]
\end{otherlanguage}
\end{document}

This issue causes my Hebrew headers to disappear since English mode doesn't use the Hebrew font (and it shouldn't).
Another side effect of this issue is that if you get to pages of more than one digit (increase the \Blindtext parameters to see this), then the page number in the footer is also reversed: instead of page 10, it shows page 01.

How can I configure the headers and footers to be in the same language regardless of which language is selected?

Best Answer

It’s a situation that occurs sometimes, so babel provides the package option headfoot to deal with it:

\usepackage[bidi=basic, layout=tabular, headfoot=hebrew]{babel}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Header on odd pages

Since you have to define the \headheight at the begining of the code within geometry package irredeemably, this will stablish that same height for the header throughout the document.

To change that, you can define a \newgeometry with the \headheight equal to 0pt at the begining of even pages, but you have to redefine your previous geometry in the next page again. This is a manual procedure, but I don't know another way to do that.

Here I post you some code. As you can see, I have defined two styles with \fancypagestyle, one for even pages and another one for de odd ones. If you want to disable the numbering of the pages, just remove the \fancyfoot and \renewcommand\footrulewidth lines inside each style.

\documentclass[12pt,twoside]{article}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage[a4paper,margin=2cm,includeheadfoot,headheight=44pt]{geometry}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\fancypagestyle{odd}{ % 
\fancyhf{} 
\fancyhead[OL]{COURSE}
\fancyhead[OR]{
    \begin{tabular}{ c c }
        NAME  & NO  \\
        NAME1 & xxx \\
        NAME2 & yyy \\
    \end{tabular}
    }
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0.4pt} 
\fancyfoot[C]{\thepage}
}

\fancypagestyle{even}{ %
\fancyhf{}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}  
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0.4pt}
\fancyfoot[C]{\thepage}
}

\begin{document}

\thispagestyle{odd}

\lipsum[1-2]

\newpage

\thispagestyle{even}
\newgeometry{margin=2cm,includefoot,headheight=0pt} %Just \includefoot

\lipsum[1-2] 

\newpage

\thispagestyle{odd} 
\newgeometry{margin=2cm,includeheadfoot,headheight=44pt}

\lipsum[1-2]  

\end{document}

The first page is messed up because the \headheight is by default 12pt but should be 44pt in this case. Is there any way to calculate this automatically? I would like to avoid typing 44pt manually.

I don't know any way to avoid calculate this manually. Just compile your document and wait for the log message referring to the \headheight and set that lenght as minimum.

[Tex/LaTex] Use Latin language with babel

\documentclass[british]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[main=british, french, german, latin]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}

\usepackage[style=authoryear, backend=biber]{biblatex}

\addbibresource{biblatex-examples.bib}

\begin{document}
Lorem
\end{document}

produces the warning

Package biblatex Warning: Language 'latin' not supported.
(biblatex)                Using fallback language 'british' on input line 11.

Your editor may digest that message for you and may only display the 'important' Language 'latin' not supported. bit of that message prominently to you robbing you of the chance to see that it comes from biblatex.

Due to the way language loading works in biblatex, all declared document languages are loaded at the beginning of the document even if they are not used at all. Languages that are not supported yield a warning. Since there is no latin.lbx Latin is not supported by biblatex (if you want to contribute a .lbx file for an unsupported language or know someone who can, drop by at https://github.com/plk/biblatex/issues). If you do not plan to typeset citations or the bibliography in an unsupported language you safely can ignore that message.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Header on odd pages

[Tex/LaTex] Use Latin language with babel

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