Re: Bidi and Arabic support

From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Nov 10 2002 - 21:41:57 EST

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     --- Martin Sevior <msevior@physics.unimelb.edu.au>
    wrote:
    > On Sun, 10 Nov 2002, Mumtaz Ahmed wrote:
    >
    > > Dear All,
    > >
    > > I have installed Abiword 1.0.3 under windows 2000.
    > > I want to use Abiword to type a manuscript in
    > > Arabic and English. I have TITUS Cyberbit Basic
    > > uniocde font downloaded from
    > >
    > >
    http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/tituut.asp
    > > .
    > >
    > > Here is what I have done: I set Tools--Set
    > > Langauge to Arabic. Click on "force RTL direction
    > > of text" button.
    > > Then select font (TITUS Cyberbit Basic). It gives
    > > me English letters, and does not let me type
    > > Arabic.
    > >
    > > How do I configure Abiword to let me type Arabic.
    > >
    >
    > My *GUESS* is that you have to somehow configure
    > Windows to put Arbic keycodes into abiword.
    > Unfortunately I have no idea how to do that. (I
    > don't use windows or speak Arabic :-) I hope that
    > someone else on the list who has overcome similar
    > problems can help. We have had success stories from
    > other Arabic users here and I know that AbiWord
    > is used routinely in Hebrew.

    Martin is correct. You need to install the Arabic
    keyboard driver in Windows. You are lucky that you
    are using Windows 2000 which always comes with Arabic
    support. Go to Control Panel and look for Language,
    Locale, or Keyboard options. (I forget exactly and I'm
    now using Windows 98 which is different).
    In the language section you can click on and add
    Arabic - there are versions for many countries.
    You can also add an Arabic keyboard in the Keyboard
    section. Again there are a couple of varieties.
    You will need the original Windows 2000 CD to do this.
    Once you have Arabic installed, there will be a small
    icon in the right of the Taskbar near the clock - you
    can use this to change keyboard layout while you're
    using Windows.

    Now if you have a real Arabic keyboard it will help.
    If you can already touch-type Arabic it shouldn't
    matter. If you are not familiar with an Arabic
    keyboard it will be trickier since you will have to
    figure out which letter is on which key. If you look
    in the "Program Files/Accessories" section of the
    Windows Start Menu you should find a program which
    will
    display the keyboard layout for the keyboard you have
    selected. This helps a lot when you only have an
    English keyboard.

    Let me know if you have any further questions.

    Andrew Dunbar.

    > I'll CC the developer list too. Once we get this
    > sorted out this information should definately get
    > posted to the AbiWord twiki. (A user editable
    > encyclopedia containing useful info about how to use
    > AbiWord.)
    >
    > Cheers
    >
    > Martin
    >
    >

    =====
    http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/translator.pl http://www.abisource.com

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