Arabic Characters

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Level 1

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Arabic Characters

I have an keyboard with both Arabic and English. I am facing two problems when I try to enter Arabic characters:
One is that the characters are being separated i.e. not attached correctly with each other in programs like open office or microsoft office word. in other applications or the desktop its okay.
another thing is that the character printed on the keyboard is not the same as the character entered. Is this a problem with the letters printed on the keys or is there a way to change the layout of the keyboard on the system so it reflects correctly.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Dec 11, 2008 5:56 AM

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Answer 1

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Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,970 points

Dec 11, 2008 6:06 AM in response to ezigo

One is that the characters are being separated i.e. not attached correctly with each other in programs like open office or microsoft office word.

MS Word for Mac does not support Arabic yet. I think OpenOffice should work if you set the font to Geeza Pro.

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

another thing is that the character printed on the keyboard is not the same as the character entered. Is this a problem with the letters printed on the keys or is there a way to change the layout of the keyboard on the system so it reflects correctly.

Is that a Windows keyboard? If so, you can try the layout here:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2007/08/another-arabic-keyboard-layout.html

Or make your own using Ukelele.

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Answer 2

ezigo Author

Level 1

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Dec 13, 2008 2:07 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks for the reply.
about the font I guess what I need to do is to remove MS fonts which are causing the problem.

The keyboard is a Mac original keyboard. I am surprised that I have to edit the keyboard layout file in order for it to work properly. Should I be asking for a replacement for the keyboard?

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

115,970 points

Dec 13, 2008 5:31 AM in response to ezigo

about the font I guess what I need to do is to remove MS fonts which are causing the problem.

There is no way to make MS Word do correct Arabic, and you should not have to remove any fonts for OpenOffice, just select the Apple font Geeza Pro. Removing fonts is normally only necessary if you have problems with display in Safari.

The keyboard is a Mac original keyboard. I am surprised that I have to edit the keyboard layout file in order for it to work properly.

You are right, the layouts supplied with OS X should work with a Mac keyboard. I have not heard of anyone else with that problem so far. Could you provide some details about exactly where the keyboard and the layout are different (you can email me -- tom at bluesky dot org).

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