Arabic scientific e-document typography

2012

Abstract—For many years, tools authoring for e-documents composition has been tailored for the English script’s needs. The localization of these tools to Arabic alphabet based writings is not an easy task, because of the great typographical and structural characteristic differences, and also because Arabic typography needs to process the text and analyze it contextually so that it can be typed according to the strict rules of Arabic calligraphy. Most typesetting tools seek to composite Arabic documents through adaptation of fonts capability to Latin based systems or by adaptation of the tools themselves to Arabic writing rules, and this is not an easy job due to the necessity of complex contextual analysis of Arabic writing and processing algorithms which differ from those in Latin based systems. The main purpose of this survey is to explore Arabic typography rules and to review the current Arabic typesetting systems. Such systems have been adapted to process special Arabic document...

Language Culture Type: International Type Design in …

Until recently, Arabic text representation was the exclusive domain of professional calligraphers and typographers. Today it revolves around elusive computer codes and ugly fonts. Yet, scholars are expected to be able to handle literary text, archaic text as well as contemporary Qur'anic text with so-called word processors. The industry attempts to cater for such requirements, but it must do so practically without participation or professional input of academic specialists. Consequently the potential of philological computing, in fields like database research, networking and publishing, remains largely untapped. For the creation of a complete model for handling Arabic script with information technology, exhaustive understanding of its structure is imperative. Creating such such a model involves linguistically sound computer-aided transcription for efficient data entry on the one hand and historically correct script images as professional output on the other. This is the kind of exercise where one cannot afford to take anything for granted regarding Arabic text representation. This approach forces one to explore the opportunities of Unicode-based information technology for Arabic philology. While addressing key issues of Arabic computing, this paper takes the requirements of Qur'anic studies as the central theme: computer-aided transcription to input a clean data structure related to graphemes and archigraphemes as well as correctly shaped typography that incorporates precise rules for allographic assimilation. The paper is based on the results of research into two faces of Arabic text: computer-aided Latin transcription and computer-synthesized Arabic script. The technology under scrutiny creates the conditions for contrastive analysis of digital Arabic text and computer-synthesized calligraphy. This reveals unexpected relations between calligraphy, spelling and possibly even text history.

1993

ArabT E X is primarily intended for generating the Arabic writing, but the standard scientific transliteration can also be easily produced. For languages other than Arabic that are customarily written in extensions of the Perso-Arabic script, some limited support is available. ArabT E X defines its own input notation which is both machine, and human, readable, and suited for electronic transmission and E-Mail communication. However, texts in many of the Arabic standard encodings can also be processed. ArabT E X also provides support for fully vowelized Hebrew, both in its private ASCII input notation and in several other popular encodings. ArabT E X is copyrighted by the author, but free. If you use the system for scientific work please give appropriate credit to the software and the author (e.g. in the colophon of a monograph.) We also appreciate a complimentary copy of any scientific work produced with ArabT E X.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1998

In 1945, the Cairo Academy for the Arabic Language opened a contest to find the best project for simplification of the Arabic writing system. They received about 200 replies. We have chosen three of these projects (a preliminary project by an Academy subcommitee, and projects by Ahmed Lakhdar-Ghazal and Yahya Boutemene) and have implemented them via the Ω typesetting system. In this paper we describe and discuss these projects and their implementations. A text sample is presented both in simplified and in regular form. Showing new aspects of the Arabic script, these systems can be useful for Arabic typesetting, as well as in providing new directions for Arabic type design.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 1997

Arabic Script Tutoral

"Like all multi-lingual computing, Arabic computing is now firmly in the domain of Unicode. Unicode is an industrial protocol with the status of international agreement. It is designed to encode the elements of all known script systems in such a way that they become interchangeable between programs and operating systems. Its implementation is well underway. Unicode eliminates the need to tamper with fonts to get special characters, but it is not a font. For legible text on screen and paper, Unicode depends on compatible fonts with the required characters, where necessary with additional dedicated font technology."

With the globalization of visual systems in the Middle East arose new demands in the Arabic graphic design. The imported western commercial and cultural products had created in the Arabic societies new hybrid needs and contradicted visual languages. Unfortunate, western design methodologies and models like constructivism have hardly been understood, even from educators or designers. Modern typography is usually mistaken with calligraphic talent. The controversial European styles like Arts Nouveau have been arabized from designers, who are still dealing with Arabic letterforms as a result of sacred Islamic art. It seems that the western aesthetical norms should be used en mass. Even when we identify its negative impact of the westernized Hebrew and Sanskrit scripts, many of type designers are still using matchmaking techniques in order to create Arabic typefaces out of Latin letterforms: Arabic and Latin types should look identical! (AbiFares, 2007) It is understandable to find international brands like Coca Cola, Kodak, and KFC looking for identical corporate Arabic versions. Their products need to be promoted in unified appearances with dialect language and local touch. But in case of creating a new Arabic typeface for body text, letterforms should be designed according to Arabic reading's habits. Therefore, this paper will focus on the majority of Arabic readers, and reject both of the above-mentioned methods. A new approach for designing Arabic typeface will be presented with the hypothesis that a mixture between old Arabic letterforms could create economical types without causing conflicts with global visual norms.