Arabic-L:GEN:Arabic on Mac

[Dilworth Parkinson]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arabic-L: Tue 25 Mar 2008
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
[To post messages to the list, send them to arabic-l at byu.edu]
[To unsubscribe, send message from same address you subscribed from to
listserv at byu.edu with first line reading:
            unsubscribe arabic-l                                      ]

-------------------------Directory------------------------------------

1) Subject:Arabic on Mac
2) Subject:Arabic on Mac
3) Subject:Arabic on Mac
4) Subject:Arabic on Mac
5) Subject:Arabic on Mac

-------------------------Messages-----------------------------------
1)
Date: 25 Mar 2008
From:Chris H <kaix04holmanski77 at hotmail.com>
Subject:Arabic on Mac

Hello,
I am only passing it along because it has been such a great help for  
me, but the program Mellel is a word processor that flawlessly handles  
Arabic and is available for Mac's.  I highly recommend it myself, but  
again, I am not trying to market it.  : )
Just FYI,
Chris Holman
University of Oregon

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)
Date: 25 Mar 2008
From:"raram" <raram at umich.edu>
Subject:Arabic on Mac

SALAMAAT:
Do I need to add  the NeoOffice suite to my new Mac? Thanks,
Raji

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)
Date: 25 Mar 2008
From:Rahawi, Mohammed A" <RahawiMA at state.gov>
Subject:Arabic on Mac

Who needs M$ Office?!

I have been using NeoOffice for the last 3 or 4 years. It's as good as
M$ Office and is fully compatible with all versions of M$ Office
including 2007. Best of all, it's free.

Best,
Mohammed Rahawi

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)
Date: 25 Mar 2008
From:"Alexander J. Stein" <alharaka at gmail.com>
Subject:Arabic on Mac

Waheed,
I use NeoOffice to write Arabic for my papers. It works very well. You  
will have to enable BiDi (BiDirectional writing) properties. If you  
need any help. Send me an email.
Regards,
_AJS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)
Date: 25 Mar 2008
From:Dil Parkinson <dil at byu.edu>
Subject:Arabic on Mac

I was also highly annoyed that MS seems intent on destroying Arabic on  
the Mac.  They know how to do it, but they simply refuse to port it to  
the Mac version of MS word.

For those not yet initiated and who are struggling to use basic Arabic  
capabilities on the mac, here are some hints:

1. Go to International under system preferences and choose an arabic  
key layout or two.  Click the box to show the key layouts on the  
menubar.

2. Open textedit, and under format choose 'wrap to page'.  (This is an  
important step if you want textedit to print and wrap on the screen as  
it does on the printed page.)

3. Choose Format->Text->Writing Direction->Right To Left
The last step is what fixes the parentheses and punctuation, allowing  
them to appear in the correct places.

4. Chose Format->Font->Show Fonts
which will allow you to choose the Arabic font you want.

5. Choose the arabic key layout you want to use (It should be under  
the American Flag in the key layout menu, if you checked that box I  
mentioned above)

You are ready to type basic Arabic documents.

The same principles are going to apply to other Apple programs that  
are Arabic-enabled (like Mail).  You sometimes need to search around a  
bit, but you need to find that Right To Left command to make things  
work properly.

Some of you may not be aware that although MS Word documents that were  
prepared on a PC and that include Arabic in them will not show up  
correctly when read into MS Word on a Mac, you can drag the document  
onto the textedit icon, and even though it may not be perfect, it will  
be more or less a readable version of the file, including the Arabic,  
that you can deal with.

I use Textedit for making basic Arabic documents, and for creating  
Arabic text for other documents.

Mellel and Nisus are both acceptable alternatives.  They have much  
higher capabilities than Textedit, but also a much steeper learning  
curve.

NeoOffice is also a good alternative.

For more complicated documents, if you have the money, the Middle East  
version of Indesign is really a very wonderful program which I have  
become very attached to.  Again, a fairly steep learning curve, but it  
is a program of amazing power and beauty.

dil

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of Arabic-L:  25 Mar 2008