19. Are there Arabic word processors?
Description
This article is from the Lebanon FAQ, by Alaa Dakroub dakroub@leb.net with numerous contributions by others.
19. Are there Arabic word processors?
Bassem Medawar has compiled a large FAQ on the subject of Arabic on
computers. It is very comprehensive and is available on the SoL archive
in
rama.poly.edu in /pub/reader/text/faq2 (notice the 2 in faq2)
There is Arab TeX. A message was posted about it on scl and Leb-Net
some time ago. It is public domain, based on TeX which is also public
domain. TeX is NOT user friendly -as compared to the Macs.
ArabTeX 3.00 is available by anonymous ftp from ftp.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
The directory is /pub/arabtex, the "README" file gives details.
The identical package is also available from the CTAN server network:
Aston (ftp.tex.ac.uk, /pub/archive/languages/arabtex/),
Huntsville (ftp.shsu.edu, /tex-archive/languages/arabtex/),
Stuttgart (ftp.uni-stuttgart.de, /pub/tex/languages/arabtex/)
A new public domain release of my X-Windows based text editor
for arabic and any other Right-to-left language was recently announced.
The system was designed with flexibility in mind and ease of configuration.
Any one can configure the keyboard and font mapping to suit their language
and the keyboard they are used to.
The system can also be instructed to generate TeX files suitable for the
language in question. The System was tested on ArabTeX with
satisfactory results. The README file provides more information.
The archive containing all the source code needed is available from:
ftp.ecs.soton.ac.uk /pub/incoming/xaw.tar.Z
rama.poly.edu /in.coming/xaw.tar.Z
(it was not possible to find xaw.tar.Z on the two server mentioned above, maybe
the best way is to get in contact with the author directly)
If you have any problems or queries and suggestions please contact:
A M Shihab <ams90@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
There are Arabic word processors. But the solutions are a little more
complicated than we would want them. There is one program
which runs on any Mac operating system, i.e. any language. I produces text
that can directly be pasted into other word processors. This program is
called AlKatib, but is very old and has very many restrictions. Don't
expect much from it.
Otherwise the way to go is to use the Mac's Arabic Operating system
(AOS). This system is designed to work with any program. Yet again this
is not completely true. Most programs that are worth their price, are not
compatible with AOS. Only very primitive programs that uses the editor
routines of the operating system correctly and are very limited in
their features. There are however a few programs that work correctly
with AOS. There are the products of a company called WinSoft
(based in France?). They have a word processor, WinText and a database
WinFile. I use the word processor and am sort of satisfied. It is not very
expensive either. On the other hand, there is an Arabic (and a Hebrew)
version of Nisus. I have not used it, but some colleagues who did are
satisfied. I am not sure of the price.
For those who need a useful and cheap database, you could opt for
FileMaker Pro. It is not completely compatible with the AOS (you can not
search Arabic text) but is useful and quite efficient. Another program
that I used earlier was SuperPaint 1.xx. It is a paint/draw program which
is compatible with AOS.
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