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Arabic Script (for MS Word 2008) for MAC
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Thread poster: K. Ganly

Arabic Script (for MS Word 2008) for MAC

K. Ganly

United Kingdom
Local time: 08:07
French to English
+ ...

May 8, 2009

Hello All,

I am looking for advice for Arabic script software for Mac- preferably a way of using the script within MS Word. When i type at the moment, the characters appear but remain in isolation and do not join up to each other, which is, of course, of no use to me.

Normally i just use Text Edit for typing Arabic, as it works fine there - however, i was hoping for a way of using MS Word successfully as the formatting options are better.

I use a Macbook with Leopard OS, i do not have it partitioned and do not employ windows on the Mac.

Any advice much appreciated.
Katharine

Robert Tucker
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:07
German to English
+ ...

Arabic keyboard

May 8, 2009

Have a look at:

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/arabic.html#mac

and see if the information there is of any use to you.

There should be no problem typing Arabic – if there is try OpenOffice or NeoOffice.

K. Ganly

United Kingdom
Local time: 08:07
French to English
+ ...

TOPIC STARTER

link

May 9, 2009

Thank you Robert- it seems a very useful link so i am going to explore it.

I dont have any problems with setting up the Arabic keyboard- that seems to work fine- or even setting RTL within word, and typing, but the characters just dont join...It seems i may have to move to Openoffice or something similar, by the looks of it.

In any case, there is loads of info on the site, so will take a look and see what seems most appropriate from there- looks like i might find some new fonts as well-!

Robert Tucker
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:07
German to English
+ ...

Office 2008

May 10, 2009

As of Office 2008, integration with the native Apple RTL behaviors had not been implemented.

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/keyboards/macrtl.html#wp

Seems to be quite a key statement.

Rebecca_M
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:07
Arabic to English

Arabic and MAC dont mix!

Jul 25, 2010

I recently switched to using a MAC and experience this exact same problem. I also found that the characters only connect when using TextEdit and that occasionally Arabic text typed in TextEdit can be successfully pasted into Pages, however, this text can not be edited in Pages without becoming corrupted, although you may be able to format it. I have concluded that the best option is to partition your MAC and work in Windows mode for Arabic projects.

This is another useful website on this issue although there dont seem to be any real solutions for resolving the issue in MAC-mode:

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

Hope this helps!

[Edited at 2010-07-25 13:10 GMT]