Arabic-L:GEN:Arabic Microsoft problems

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Fri 15 Dec 2000
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: Arabic Microsoft problems

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1)
Date: 15 Dec 2000
From: GnhBos at aol.com
Subject: Arabic Microsoft problems

Dear Arabists,

We appreciate comments, speculation, and/or tips that you may
come up with, to help the Institute:

>>
Dear George,
I'm working for the Arabic Teaching Institute in Bochum, Germany (LSI).

Today we wanted to ask you about a problem with our Arabic Microsoft
programs because we thought you know a lot more people who work with
these programs. Until two years ago we worked with Word 6.0 and were
perfectly happy with it. We could switch off ligatures to make reading
easy for beginners, we could easily write lists of vocabulary because
working in tables with different languages and directions was possible
and all these things. Then we changed to Windows 95 and Word 97 and
things became more difficult, writing paragraphs in blocks we had to
search a long time to discover how to regulate so that for example the I
in wazir wouldn't be longer than the r in the end and so on. Also
avoiding ligatures became more complicated because right now you have to
type a special short cut for every ligature you want to avoid.
Some months ago we decides to try Office 2000 and there you typing in
Arabic and especially in two languages, two fonts and two directions,
German and Arabic, becomes much more complicated because language and
direction are not automatically linked and working for example in a
table with in advance differently marked cells you have nevertheless to
change every time you move to a new cell and always be very careful to
have the right language and the right direction.
So now we really have to think about what we are going to do in the
future. We haven't got a lot of exchange with people using Arabic
programs so we wanted to ask you about your experiences and perhaps
about an advice what to do.
We really would appreciate your help very much and remain
Yours sincerely,
Michaela Kleinhaus
Michaela.Kleinhaus at ruhr-uni-bochum.de (Michaela Kleinhaus)
>>

I am sure Michaela and the institute will appreciate your input.
Thanks and Happy Holidays.

Best Regards,

George N. Hallak
AramediA Group
761 Adams Street
Boston, MA 02122, USA

http://www.aramedia.com
mailto:info at aramedia.com
T 617-825-3044 F 265-9648

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End of Arabic-L: 15 Dec 2000