Re: typesetting Arabic today

["Wolfgang Schuster" <schuster.wolfgang@googlemail.com>]

On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 6:31 PM, Burak Emir <burak.emir@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> First of all, I'd wish to express my thanks to the makers of and
> contributors to ConTeXt - it is quite a pleasure to use so far.
>
> Now for my concern: I want to typeset Arabic.
>
> What would I use?
>
> I am aware of ArabTex, I haven't yet tried Omega... however, I followed some
> presentations for LuaTeX and typesetting Arabic was mentioned there as
> motivation. This is how I got to ConTeXt in the first place.

Omega is dead or nearly dead and part of the code is integrated in LuaTeX.

> Trying the documentation, I ended up on the following page which says "TODO"
> http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Arabic_and_Hebrew
>
> I also searched mail archives, but the mails I found on this subject were
> from 2003, so I thought it is worth probing for an update.
>
> Any news or hints appreciated.

The MkIV manual [1] has a section about arabic, you try the following code
with LuaTeX or XeTeX (should work).

\definefontfeature
  [arab-default]
  [mode=node,language=dflt,script=arab,
   init=yes,medi=yes,fina=yes,isol=yes,
   liga=yes,dlig=yes,rlig=yes,clig=yes,
   mark=yes,mkmk=yes,kern=yes,curs=yes]

\definefont[ArabFont][arabtype*arab-default at 18pt]

\starttext

Normal text.

{\ArabFont Your arabic text.}

\stoptext

arabtype in \definefont is the name of your font and you should
replace it with one available on your system.

[1] http://pragma-ade.nl/show-man-41.htm

Greetings
Wolfgang
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