Re: [office] xml:lang settings. Confused.

See ...

<http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/bidi-xhtml/>

... where they have this example:

<p>This is <em>English</em>, but <span lang="ja" 
xml:lang="ja">$B$3$l$O(B<em>$BF|K\8l(B</em>$B$G$9!#(B</span></p>

CSS includes language selectors as well, so you can control the fonts 
through that mechanism.

em           { font-style: italic; }
em:lang(ja)  { font-style: normal; font-emphasize: dot before; }

Seems to me to suggest xml:lang is a good solution here.

Bruce