ARABIC FONTS

I need to install arabic fonts on my MacBook, OS 10.4.11 and specifically ArabicTransparent - Bold and I cannot find it.

What do you need it for exactly? You can't use Windows Arabic fonts like that on a Mac except in the app Mellel. The Arabic fonts that work are Geeza Pro (already on your machine) and those mentioned in this note:

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

It is a PDF file opening in Adobe Reader and not recognizing some fonts (as written in your article).

How can solve this? I need to print the document

If possible, ask the people you got it from to send it again in a different form, either as a .tiff graphic or a Word .doc or .rtf file. With the latter you can probably change the font to what displays on a Mac. Or open the pdf on a Windows machine.

Or, if they're using Adobe Acrobat to create the PDF, have them recreate it and this time select to embed the fonts in the document. Then you shouldn't need to have them installed on your computer.

Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

Or, if they're using Adobe Acrobat to create the PDF, have them recreate it and this time select to embed the fonts in the document. Then you shouldn't need to have them installed on your computer.

The trouble is, it doesn't matter if you do have the right Windows Arabic font installed on your computer, normally it will not display correctly. You have to be able to switch it to the Mac font Geeza Pro.

Will Acrobat not embed the correct font within the document, Tom, so that the user doesn't need to have the font installed on the computer? That's what it's supposed to do, unless I'm badly mistaken (quite possible), but that doesn't mean that there isn't some bug or limitation in Acrobat that will prevent it from working correctly.

Will Acrobat not embed the correct font within the document, Tom, so that the user doesn't need to have the font installed on the computer?

It's worth a try perhaps, but the problem is that the "correct" font for Windows (Arabic Transparent in this case) will not normally display usable Arabic on a Mac. The two platforms use different technologies for complex scripts like Arabic, so you need to switch the font to the Mac version or be able to open the doc with certain apps that can deal with Windows Arabic fonts.

Tom,

Have you heard any more about this? I thought the whole point of PDF was to be platform-independent.

I never ran across this problem until recently, but in the past few months I am increasingly running across a number of Arabic-language PDFs that are illegible because of the missing "Simplified Arabic" font issue. Generally speaking, they are documents posted on the website of some government department in the Middle East, so the option of asking for the document to be recreated/resent in another format is not viable as a practical matter. It is very frustrating to be unable to handle these documents.

I suspect the reason I perceive this problem to be on the uptick is because bureaucrats that never posted PDFs before are now doing so, but are using old Windows machines to create them, so I am suddenly coming across lots of PDFs that I can't read.

I am running the latest version of Adobe (version 9) - isn't there some way I can edit the preferences on Adobe to force it to use my preferred Arabic font instead of Simplified Arabic?

Best regards,
DXB Law

Tom Gewecke wrote:

Will Acrobat not embed the correct font within the document, Tom, so that the user doesn't need to have the font installed on the computer?

It's worth a try perhaps, but the problem is that the "correct" font for Windows (Arabic Transparent in this case) will not normally display usable Arabic on a Mac. The two platforms use different technologies for complex scripts like Arabic, so you need to switch the font to the Mac version or be able to open the doc with certain apps that can deal with Windows Arabic fonts.

I am running the latest version of Adobe (version 9) - isn't there some way I can edit the preferences on Adobe to force it to use my preferred Arabic font instead of Simplified Arabic?

Do you have Simplified Arabic on your machine? Maybe it will work if you have it. One place to find simpo.ttf is http://www.websrilanka.com/Download%20Fonts/

Can you send me one of the pdf's (or provide a link)?

Tom, downloading and installing the fonts Simplified Arabic, Simplified Arabic-Bold, Transparent Arabic and Transparent Arabic-Bold solves the problem. Thanks!!

But I thought in your earlier post you said that a Mac would not be able to handle these Windows fonts?

Message was edited by: DXB Law

But I thought in your earlier post you said that a Mac would not be able to handle these Windows fonts?

I was wrong, they can work in pdfs (and in 10.5 TextEdit too I think).

That is great news!!

Thanks, Tom.