[einpoklum]

I speak (and write) a right-to-left language.

I'm not a pandoc user (so far); and have struggled many times in the past with bugs and lacking features in LibreOffice and LaTeX regarding right-to-left text layout and language-specific issues.

My question: How "trustworthy" is pandoc in handling right-to-left content and side-stepping the minefield of target format issues involving such content? Is this subject getting explicit attention from maintainers?

[tarleb]

Pandoc should be usable for users of all languages and scripts. It is possible to define the documents language via the `lang` metadata field; `ltr` and `rtl` attributes can be set for individual text elements.

Core contributors are westerners or Russian (US, UK, Switzerland, Germany, Russia), and we rely heavily on user reports to improve non-LTR scripts and languages. But the goal is to make pandoc work flawlessly for everyone.

[mcswell]

I have used Xe(La)TeX and the bidi package for mixed rtl and ltr script documents. I don't recall any problems with that. There's also a polyglossia package, but I have less experience with that.

[mb2100]

see https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#language-variables