Problem with Arabic font: In certain contexts, when writing Arabic with vowel signs (fatha, damma, kasra, sukun) a sequence of sukun fatha/damma etc. would reverse automatically. Is this a known bug?

It is probably a bug with Bayan, which is an older font. Mavericks comes with 18 Arabic fonts, try using another one. Best not to use Arial Unicode, which is even order and for Windows and will not work in some apps.

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2013/11/os-109-mavericks-new-arabic-fonts.html

You are right, it is a mess! I have not seen this problem reported before, perhaps because the default Geeza Pro worked correctly before Mavericks (works on my 10.7)?

Does Waseem not work for you?

The SIL fonts Lateef and Scheherazade work for me too:

http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=arabicfonts

Hi. I'm relatively new to Apple. I'm using Mac Air with Mavericks 10.9.3.

I've no idea how i can even start using arabic vowels on Microsoft Word for Apple or on TextEdit. After much consultation with Applecare on use of Arabic fonts, the support person advised me to add Arabic as a language in System Preferences. I've only just managed to get Arabic fonts to be displayed in Textedit and Word. A little fald appears in the top bar of the screen next to the battery charge icon. I click this to switch between languagues. Is this how you guys are witching between Arabic and English?

How do i begin to place vowels on arabic letters? My Mac Air has a standard English keyboard so what is the best way to determine which English alphabet keys represent which arabic characters?

I have installed Lateef.

Would much appreciate a simple explanation.

Kind Regards

Musaafir wrote:

I've no idea how i can even start using arabic vowels on Microsoft Word for Apple

You can't do Arabic on MS Word for Mac. This app has never supported RTL scripts, so you need to use something else. Mellel is best, but Pages 5, TextEdit, Nisus Writer, Open/LibreOffice should work OK.

You switch between languages by using the "flag" menu at the top right of the screen or by using the keyboard shortcuts apple/command plus space. Go to system prefs/keyboard/shortcuts to make sure that is activated.

To see which key does what, you use Keyboard Viewer.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13746

You place vowels on letters by typing the key for the vowel after the key for the letter. The vowels are on the option/alt keys, option/alt + a gives you َ

Many thanks Tom. Very useful information. I notice that vowels are accessible by holding the shift key down rather than alt / options key..

Really appreciated your response to this.

Musaafir wrote:

I notice that vowels are accessible by holding the shift key down rather than alt / options key..

That's right for the Arabic or Arabic PC keyboard layouts. If you use Arabic Qwerty it's the alt/option key.

The "keyboard view" via the "Show Keyboard Viewer" is quite small and the Arabic vowels (damma, fatha, kasra etc) displayed when pressing the Shift are hardly visible so it's near enough impossible to tell what each vowel is by just looking. Is there any way of making the keyboard viwer larger? Thanks in advance.

Musaafir wrote:

The "keyboard view" via the "Show Keyboard Viewer" is quite small

Try stretching it from the bottom right corner.

Tom your advice has been really helpful. Thanks. Further question. How can I find the "tanween" characters. I've tried the various key combinations (Shift-Key, Control-key, etc) on the "keyboard view" but I can't find anywhere!

Musaafir wrote:

How can I find the "tanween" characters. I've tried the various key combinations (Shift-Key, Control-key, etc) on the "keyboard view" but I can't find anywhere!

They are are option + shift. Control is never used for characters on a Mac.