Viewing Arabic on this site
If this isn't the word Arabic: العربية, in Arabic then your computer probably doesn't have a Arabic Unicode font installed and you will have problems reading Arabic text on this site.
Following are instructions for getting Arabic Unicode to display properly on various computer operating systems.
Unicode
This site uses Unicode (UTF-8) encoding throughout to enable multiple character sets to be displayed on the same page. If your browser or system has the ability to automaticallt detect the page encoding then it should siplay fine if you have the correct fonts installed. If you have overrriden the autodetect and instructed your browser to always use a particular encoding (say ISO-8859-1) then the non-latin script on this site will not display until you either set it to UTF8 or automatic.
Microsoft Windows
Windows XP and Windows 2000
The best Microsoft font for Arabic is the Tahoma font which is shipped with Windows XP and Windows 2000.
Microsoft Office 2000 and Microsoft Office XP
If you have a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 or Microsoft Office XP, or Microsoft Publisher 2002, and Arabic is not displaying properly then you can install the Arial Unicode MS font which is distributed by Microsoft with these products.
If you are unsure how to install Arial Unicode MS from CD then follow these instructions for installing Arial Unicode MS.
Alternatively, please consult the Microsoft Help and Support website — try searching for "Arial Unicode".
Windows 98, Windows ME and Windows NT 4.0
Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 are not distributed with Arial Unicode MS so you will need to install an alternative Arabic font.
Bitstream CyberBase is a free font that is available from Netscape. To install it please download the CyberBase zip file from Netscape. Note that Contact a Family provide the link to this file but are not reponsible for the file or related support. Please refer all questions to Netscape.
If you don't have a utility available to uncompress .zip files then one you can download UltimateZip for free.
Once you have uncompressed the font file you can install using the font utility in the Control Panel, alternatively just copy the .ttf files into your \windows\fonts\ directory. There are more detailed instructions on our installing fonts page.
Upgrading Internet Explorer
If you have installed the font and it is still not displaying properly this might be because you have an old version of Internet Explorer, if you are using a version older than version 5.5 then you will need to update it. To find out which version you are using select Help, About Internet Explorer.
The easiest way to upgrade is to use the Windows Update icon in your start menu, alternatively you could go straight to the Windows Update Website or you could go straight to the Internet Explorer Downloads Web site.
Adding Arabic Text Support
One thing to check when installing Internet Explorer 6 is the option for Arabic Text Support and Language Auto-Selection.
If you already have Internet Explorer 6 installed and you are not sure if you installed Arabic Text Support then you can use the Add/Remove Programes icon in the Control Panel to add it — select Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, click Add/Remove, click Add a Component and select Arabic Text Support and Language Auto-Selection.
Windows 95
Microsoft no longer supports Windows 95. If you are running Windows 95 then instructions above for Windows 98 might work.
Mozilla Firefox under Windows
You don't need to modify Mozilla Firefox configuration or download a plugin to display webpages or emails written in Farsi but you will need to ensure that Windows can display Farsi text using the guides above.Mac OS X
Arabic is supported out-of-the-box in Mac OS X v10.2.4, but problems have been reported using Internet Explorer v5.2.2. Try using Apple's KDE-based browser Safari.
GNU/Linux
Most GNU/Linux distributions come with packages for Arabic fonts/support. Here we list some of the packages available but you are best to use your regular package manager and search for "arabic font", then install the relevant package.- Debian
- Install the ttf-arabeyes or ttf-kacst package.
- Ubuntu & related
- Ubuntu already comes with Arabic fonts preinstalled but if your does not you should be able to install the ttf-arphic-ukai package
- Fedora Core
- Install the fonts-arabeyes package
