Arabic connecting letters not connecting_2

[OmarKN]

Good day,


Although this topic has been up here before, I still don't find a valid answer.

When writing f ex mim - wau, the letters will connect nicely, but

when I try to insert a shaddah or other nunuation, the root letters (such as mim - wau or any others ) are disconnected.

Am I missing something here?

Please assist us, thank you.

Omar K N

[hrashid]

Omar, could you give a few more specifics: What font are you using? What keyboard (Arabic, Arabic-QWERTY, custom, etc.)?

[OmarKN]

Omar, could you give a few more specifics: What font are you using? What keyboard (Arabic, Arabic-QWERTY, custom, etc.)?

Sure here are some specifics: Times New Roman, 12 pt with Arabic-QWERTY.

/Omar

[jannuss]

Times New Roman, 12 pt with Arabic-QWERTY.

Omar, others have reported problems with Times New Roman in other languages.

Run a test with another common font, say Lucida Grande, and see what happens.

Janet

[OmarKN]

Times New Roman, 12 pt with Arabic-QWERTY.

... test with another common font, say Lucida Grande, and see what happens.

Janet

Well, right on!
It functions with Lucida, which is enough for me,
but I feel I may want to read more - especially how to have both Arabic and Latin letters on one page, do you know where?

Also what are these files for, do I need them ?
- XWZar.zip
- UygAraUni.keylayout.zip

Thank you & best wishes,
Omar K N

[jannuss]

I'm glad the solution was so simple.

Where to go from here?

1. If you haven't already read them, there's the "getting Started with Arabic" Tutorial and the chapter in the Mellel Guide on "Arabic and Persian." Both can be found on the RedleX support page
http://www.redlers.com/supporttutorials.html

2. I googled "Arabic Opentype" to look for some nice fonts for you, but with no luck. I'm afraid the only time I use Arabic is to copy out holiday greetings to send to friends. Perhaps one of the Arabic speakers in the Forum can make a few suggestions.

3. The two files you mention are zip files. Zip is a format for packing data to make it easier to send on the net. If you double-click a zip file, it will unpack. These look to be a font and a keyboard layout both of which you probably already have installed on your computer. So, yes, go ahead and delete them.

Janet

[hrashid]

The XW series of fonts, produced by Behnam and hosted on the Redlers site, are a fantastic set of Arabic/Persian/Urdu fonts that I use extensively. Highly recommend them. The tutorial mentioned earlier will explain how to use two different font faces in the same document.

[OmarKN]

>3. The two files you mention are zip files. Zip is a format for packing data to make it easier to send on the net. If you double-click a zip file, it will unpack. These look to be a font and a keyboard layout both of which you probably already have installed on your computer. So, yes, go ahead and delete them.

Janet


Thank you,
yes the use of "zip" is well-known to me,

however I wanted to know what those two files are needed for,
or
do I need them on top of standart Mellel, when writing Arabic?

BW, Omar KN

[jannuss]

do I need them on top of standart Mellel, when writing Arabic?

Omar, you need to install the fonts.

You probably already know how to do this, but just in case:
-- double click the zip file
-- open the XW Zar folder which has just been created
-- double click each of the four font files (regular, bold, italic, italic bold); this will launch Font Book
-- click "Install Font" in the lower right of the Font Book window.

Now, when you launch Mellel, you can set the secondary palette to script=Arabic and select the new font.

About the keyboard layout, UygAraUni.keylayout, you probably don't need it. One of Apple's standard Arabic keyboard (from System Preferences/International/Input Menu) will probably work fine for you. If not, you can install the layout in a similar fashion.

Remember, you can use the Keyboard Viewer (from the flag menu in the upper right of your screen) to see exactly how characters are assigned in each different keyboard layout.

Janet