How to view Arabic text Arabic language on the internet is presented
in different forms-formats-encoding techniques. The most “popular”, and
less practical, is the GIF, which is a graphics form, that can be read
on any operating system, whatever the browser is. Nevertheless, this way
of representing text as a “picture” of the text, not the actual text itself,
is far from being acceptable in the future. Such pictures of text are not
searchable, they have few to do in a serious archiving system, Loading
time, lack of editing features and tools, and other serious factors, urged
“AD-Dustour” and a few other Arabic sites owners to construct new web sites,
that support Arabic text. Meanwhile, the GIF form will still be available
for our readers, at least for a certain period of time. The text format
is the natural and practical choice. There are main three types of encoding
techniques: Windows, ISO and Unicode UTF.
Two basic elements decide the right combination
the user should respect in order to view Arabic text adequately: the Operating
System (Windows, Mac, UNIX…), and the browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer,
Netscape Navigator,…). The reader should read the following text carefully.
1. If you are using non-Arabic Windows 95 Operating System, three main browsers (options) are available:
This is not a browser by itself. It is an
add-on, which can be used with Netscape Navigator 3.0 or 3.1 (http://www.netscape.com/)
. It supports CP and ISO encoding.
2. If you are using Arabic Windows 95:
3. If you are using Arabic Windows 3.1x:
4. If you are using Mac Operating System
MacOS (Macintosh):
In this case, you should have either the Arabic
version of MacOS, or the Arabic Language Kit, installed as an extension.
As you will see later, this does NOT guarantee viewing Arabic text correctly;
in all cases.
Use the browser preferences /internet options (Navigator, Communicator, Internet Explorer) to choose User Defined for the Encoding with Arabic fonts, both for Variable length and Fixed. The best option to guarantee viewing Arabic text correctly, whatever the underlying code is (in this very case, of course), seems to be, as far as we know, is to use Cyberdog (http://www.apple.com/). You HAVE TO install OpenDoc (http://www.apple.com/) before downloading Cyberdog. 5. If you are using UNIX:
For more information:
http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/ http://www.hf.uib.no/smi/ksv/ArabicMac.html |
