typing in arabic

1) Go to System Preferences
2) Select "International"
3) Select "Input Menu"
4) Scroll down the list to select one or more Arabic keyboards and click on the ones you want to mark them with a check.
5) At the bottom left of the box click on the box "show input menu in menu bar"

There will now be a little flag in your menu bar (top right). Arabic keyboards are marked with a green crescent.

6) Select your Arabic keyboard and start typing.

7) Note that Microsoft Office for Mac does not yet support Arabic.

Hello,

I agree with DXB Law's suggestion. But I'll add to it. I've been playing around with the Arabic input for about two months now. I tend to use the "Arabic QWERTY" input method. If you're new to the Arabic alphabet (like I am) the QWERTY keyboard is much more helpful. But if you're familiar with the standard Arabic keyboard, then the other "Arabic" input method might be better for you.

The only thing I'd caution you about (especially if you're new to Arabic) is that because certain letters in Arabic don't exactly correspond to English letters, there is some substitution. For example, in Arabic, there is no letter "P", so if you use the QWERTY keyboard, the "ta marbuta" ة is in that key placement. I haven't quite figured out how to get some of the grammatical markers (tanween, and hamza at bottom).

And I'd also suggest, type out a keyboard "map" and print it (regardless of which input method you use). I did this by typing it out and typing a space between each letter (to prevent "joining" of letters).

Anyway, good luck with it. I ended up using Nisus Writer for my Arabic input.

I haven't quite figured out how to get some of the grammatical markers (tanween, and hamza at bottom).

Are the tanweens at Option/alt + Shift + a, u, i ?

For hamza below, how about \ followed by 1. إ

In the Arabic QWERTY keyboard, the hamza is \ followed by the letter that will be the "seat" for the hamza, as follows:

ؤ = \ followed by u.
ئ = \ followed by i.
أ = \ followed by a.
To get a stand-alone hamza, you can do \ followed by a space, or you can do shift-2.

For vowel markers including tanween, a single fatha is option-a, a single damma is option-u and a single kasra is option-i. Tanween uses the shift-key plus that relevant combination so double fatha would be shift-option-a and so on.

Other Arabic letters whose location may not be immediately obvious:

ة = p
ط = y
ص = c
خ = x
ذ = v
ش = w
ع = e
ث = [
ظ = ] or shift+y (either one will work)
ض = shift +c
أ = shift + 3
آ = shift + 4
إ = shift + 5
ى = shift + i

Other letters are on keys corresponding to their English phonetic equivalents - roughly speaking, depending on your accent in both English and in Arabic.

Tom Gewecke wrote:

I haven't quite figured out how to get some of the grammatical markers (tanween, and hamza at bottom).

Are the tanweens at Option/alt + Shift + a, u, i ?

For hamza below, how about \ followed by 1. إ

In the Arabic QWERTY keyboard, the hamza is \ followed by the letter that will be the "seat" for the hamza, as follows:

Glen_slo was wondering more about "hamza at the bottom", which I guess is also Shift + 5 or Shift + \ or Option/alt + 1.

Try this guide:

http://www.smi.uib.no/ksv/ArabicMac.html