Arabic text - writing & reading

[Ahmed Al-Khafrafi]

Hi all,

I have opened a word file written in Arabic language and it did show it, but
the letters are not attached. How can I view the text properly?
Also how can I type in Arabic? (if there is a software to download or
something)

Am Word 2004 (for Mac)

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Ahmed,
Word 2004 does not handle right-to-left input properly, as you may have
found out by now. Your best bet would be to use a different application
altogether, and for that purpose, I've been told that Mellel
<http://www.redlers.com/mellel.html> does a pretty good job. As a free
alternative, you might want to use Apple's own TextEdit, which should not
have any problems creating and displaying Arabic ligatures. Also, it should
be able to open your Word files, but only if you're using Mac OS X 10.3 or
higher. If you really want to use Word itself, I seem to remember that
typing the text in TextEdit and then copying it into Word did the job for
some people; but then again, these people were using Hebrew, and I'm not
sure if the same strategy also applies to Arabic.
As a disclaimer: I have never used anything other than left-to-right Roman
input, so everything I have written above is based on vague memories and
assumptions. I hope it was helpful, anyway.

Michel