Are There Any Farsi Fonts That Work On Macs?

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Level 1

10 points

Are There Any Farsi Fonts That Work On Macs?

Any Farsi/Iranian fonts that you guys know work on a Mac. They're not as popular as Windows here, which is stupid, so I've had a hard time finding any.

13' White Macbook 1GB RAM 80GB HD | 80GB Fifth Generation iPod Video |, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Oct 29, 2007 9:27 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Henrik Holmegaard

Level 3

575 points

Oct 29, 2007 10:27 AM in response to Khanlari

Farsi, if memory serves, was supported in WorldScript in around 1990. I am not sure if you are looking for support for the specific style favoured by speakers of Farsi and Urdu, that is, Nastaliq, or if you are looking for support for the Farsi writing system within the Arabic script.

If you are looking for a Nastaliq, then this is supported in TrueType 2 / TrueType GX (: through cross-stream kerning), but there are no shipping Nastaliq fonts for TT2 as the number of ligatures makes this style of the Arabic expensive to design and develop. Monotype has updated its Nastaliq, introduced in 1981, which is now available in OpenType.

If you are looking for support for the Farsi writing system, then begin by opening System Preferences in Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, then opening International, and in the Input Menu select Persion. There are several TrueType 2 fonts for the Arabic script in Mac OS X, and they should work for you although they are in the Naskh style.

Below on Persian language support in Mac OS 9 which includes several fonts. One, if I remember rightly, is Mashad. These fonts should still work, although I am not sure:

TITLE: Mac OS 9: About Persian Language Support
Article ID: 60467
Created: 9/27/99
Modified: 2/2/00

TOPIC: This article contains the Read Me document for the Persian Language Support feature of Mac OS 9. The Persian Language Kit Support disk image is included on the Mac OS 9 disc in the CD Extras folder, in the Language Kit CD Extras Folder.

Note: The Persian Language Kit requires a component of Mac OS called WorldScript I. The Read Me
below does not mention this. Before following the installation steps provided below, use the Custom
Install feature of your Mac OS 9 install CD to install WorldScript I. Select Customized Installation for
Mac OS, and click the International checkbox to select it.

Best wishes,

Henrik

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,222 points

Oct 29, 2007 11:35 AM in response to Khanlari

Any Farsi/Iranian fonts that you guys know work on a Mac. They're not as popular as Windows here, which is stupid, so I've had a hard time finding any.

OS X comes with a bunch of Arabic fonts already. Are they missing for you? Have you activated the Persian keyboard layout in system prefs/international/input menu? Or looked in the Arabic section of the Character Palette? The fonts listed there for Arabic script are Geeza Pro, AlBayan, Deco, Kufi, Nadeem, Baghdad.

Pages unfortunately has bugs with RTL scripts, and many people find that you must copy/paste from TextEdit or another app. Mellel is the best app for RTL, you can even use Windows fonts I think.

MS or Adobe apps for Mac do not support Arabic.

See this note for some more info, and come back if you have any questions:

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/TypingArabic.html

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Answer 3

Oct 29, 2007 1:07 PM in response to Khanlari

From Leopard you can search the font book for language names. A search for "Farsi" gives nothing. A search for "Iranian" gives nothing. However, when I search for "Persian", I get a match on Geeza Pro, Code2000 and Adobe Arabic. I assume they would work.

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Answer 4

Nov 11, 2007 6:43 AM in response to Aymeric Gillaizeau2

"Wrong, Adobe softwares for Mac support Arabic or Hebrew but you need the Middle East edition."

If I may, I think what Thomas meant was that Adobe and Microsoft use a different shaping behaviour than Apple uses from Mac OS 7.5 to Mac OS X 10.4. Mac OS X 10.5 is supposed to use Apple's own shaping behaviour and Microsoft's shaping behaviour at the same time.

When the mapping from character codes to glyph codes is not 1:1, and it is not 1:1 in the Arabic script, then line layout logic is used to do the mapping. Apple line layout logic is defined inside the SFNT Spline Font itself, in the MORX Metamorphosis tables introduced in 1992 and released in 1994.

Adobe and Microsoft have an application-centric approach, that is, they prefer dumb fonts and smart applications/operating systems. In the Microsoft and Adobe extension to the TrueType Specification, there are rules in the GSUB Glyph Substitution tables, the shaping itself is further defined in the application (in Adobe's model) or the operating system (in Microsoft's model).

In the Apple model the operating system is not intended to know a lot, since the ideal is that the small specialized maker of type adds value both in the programmable hinting of the TrueType splines and in the programmable line layout logic. An Apple TrueType 2 / Apple Advanced Typography font file is more like an application, a Microsoft OpenType font file is more like a conventional dumb font file that is a client to an application that does the line layout. This is unsurprising since Microsoft has a different business model than Apple.

Best,

Henrik

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Answer 5

Behnam

Level 1

25 points

Dec 22, 2007 9:32 AM in response to Khanlari

If you have Leopard, you can use pretty much anything used on Windows.
If you are with Tiger, try this:
http://wiki.irmug.org/index.php/قلمهایسری_ایکس_نسخهٔ۲

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,222 points

Nov 11, 2007 7:41 AM in response to Henrik Holmegaard

If I may, I think what Thomas meant

What I was referring to was the fact that the standard Adobe products which most people have do not support Arabic script. It is true that there is a special version of the Adobe stuff sold by other parties which will work with Arabic, and this is mentioned in my note about Typing Arabic.

http://www.fontworld.com/me/freedemo.html

One of the new features of Leopard is support for Windows Arabic fonts, but I don't know yet whether that changes the situation with respect to MS Office for Mac or standard (not ME) Adobe products.

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2007/10/leopard-can-use-windows-arabic-fonts.html

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