copying Arabic into Word document on Mac
Mac Answers »General Discussion »copying Arabic into Word document on Mac |
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huanzuiju wrote at: 2006-07-02 22:40:59
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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I am trying to copy and paste an Arabic word from the web into a multi-lingual Word document on my Mac but am having terrible trouble. It always comes out either backwards (left-right) or with the letters not correctly joined up (an Algerian colleague tells me). I have tried making the web page I am copying from into a PDF first, but doesn't help. Any advice greatly appreciated. Michael |
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huanzuiju wrote at: 2006-07-02 22:42:00
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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I am trying to copy and paste an Arabic word from the web into a multi-lingual Word document on my Mac but am having terrible trouble. It always comes out either backwards (left-right) or with the letters not correctly joined up (an Algerian colleague tells me). I have tried making the web page I am copying from into a PDF first, but doesn't help. Any advice greatly appreciated. Michael |
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Davoud wrote at: 2006-07-03 02:38:00
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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huanzuiju.DeleteThis (~=~) googlemail.com wrote: I am trying to copy and paste an Arabic word from the web into a multi-lingual Word document on my Mac but am having terrible trouble. It always comes out either backwards (left-right) or with the letters not correctly joined up (an Algerian colleague tells me). I have tried making the web page I am copying from into a PDF first, but doesn't help. Any advice greatly appreciated. I think that MS Word for the Mac cannot handle non-Roman writing systems. I know from personal experience that it cannot handle Arabic or Hebrew. Try Nisus Writer Express <http://www.nisus.com/Express/ or Mellel II <http://www.redlers.com/. Davoud -- usenet *at* davidillig dawt com |
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André G. Isaak wrote at: 2006-07-03 07:01:59
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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In article <030720061238024639%star (~=~) sky.net, Davoud <star.RemoveThis (~=~) sky.net wrote: huanzuiju.RemoveThis (~=~) googlemail.com wrote: I am trying to copy and paste an Arabic word from the web into a multi-lingual Word document on my Mac but am having terrible trouble. It always comes out either backwards (left-right) or with the letters not correctly joined up (an Algerian colleague tells me). I have tried making the web page I am copying from into a PDF first, but doesn't help. Any advice greatly appreciated. I think that MS Word for the Mac cannot handle non-Roman writing systems. It can handle non-Roman writing systems as long as they are Cyrillic or CJK. Anything else is pretty hit or miss with word. Arabic is particularly disastrous. I don't know what your (the OP's) ultimate goal is, but, provided the web page in question is encoded correctly, you should be able to paste it into TextEdit without difficulty. If you really need it to be in said word document, you can always copy it as an image rather than as text -- create a .pdf file and then open it up in a program like graphic converter. This is definitely not an ideal solution for text, but for a single word it might be adequate. André -- n.b. there are no monotremes in my email address |
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Jon wrote at: 2006-07-03 10:11:59
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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André G. Isaak <agisaak DeleteThis (~=~) gplatypusmail.com wrote: It can handle non-Roman writing systems as long as they are Cyrillic or CJK. Anything else is pretty hit or miss with word. Arabic is particularly disastrous. I'll second that. Arabic in Mac Word is a disaster, particularly as it works well on the PC (Word for Windows). As others here have said, TextEdit, Mellel or NisusWriter are alternatives, or creating a pdf in a crunch. If you must have Office-like functionality and Arabic, go for NeoOffice - that works, in my experience (not massive with NO). -- /Jon For contact info, run the following in Terminal: Mail: echo 36199371860304980107073482417748002696458P|dc Skype: echo 139576319600233690471689738P|dc |
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Stefan wrote at: 2006-07-03 13:26:00
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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André G. Isaak schrieb: word document, you can always copy it as an image rather than as text -- create a .pdf file and then open it up in a program like graphic Even easier: Make a screenshot from that word (cmd-shift-ctrl-4 copies a selected region to the clipboard) and paste it into Word. I understand that the OP doesn't read Arabic, so this is the safest option anyway, as the Arabic script is pretty complex to the uninitiated. Stefan |
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André G. Isaak wrote at: 2006-07-03 14:27:00
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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In article <ba0a$44a98b8f$544873fe$16631 (~=~) news.hispeed.ch, Stefan <stefan.TakeThisOut (~=~) mus._INVALID_.ch wrote: André G. Isaak schrieb: word document, you can always copy it as an image rather than as text -- create a .pdf file and then open it up in a program like graphic Even easier: Make a screenshot from that word (cmd-shift-ctrl-4 copies a selected region to the clipboard) and paste it into Word. It depends on what you're ultimately doing with it -- a screen shot is limited by the resolution of your monitor, whereas a pdf with embedded fonts is not. André -- n.b. there are no monotremes in my email address |
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huanzuiju wrote at: 2006-07-03 22:49:00
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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André G. Isaak wrote: In article <ba0a$44a98b8f$544873fe$16631 (~=~) news.hispeed.ch, Stefan <stefan DeleteThis (~=~) mus._INVALID_.ch wrote: André G. Isaak schrieb: word document, you can always copy it as an image rather than as text -- create a .pdf file and then open it up in a program like graphic Even easier: Make a screenshot from that word (cmd-shift-ctrl-4 copies a selected region to the clipboard) and paste it into Word. It depends on what you're ultimately doing with it -- a screen shot is limited by the resolution of your monitor, whereas a pdf with embedded fonts is not. André Thanks to all for your help. Arabic on a Mac seems to be a mess, can't imagine they sell many Macs east of Suez. Making the page from which I was copying into a PDF didn't help at all, neither did making a screenshot by the usual Mac method (Cmd-shift-4), both these methods messed up the letters (reversed them as I recall, maybe didn't join them correctly) but what did work was screenshot software called Capture Me. I had similar but not quite as bad problems with Hebrew, putting the text first into the Google bar helped for some reason... Michael |
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Alice Faber wrote at: 2006-07-04 01:56:00
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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In article <1152028199.009963.49690.RemoveThis (~=~) j8g2000cwa.googlegroups.com, huanzuiju.RemoveThis (~=~) googlemail.com wrote: André G. Isaak wrote: In article <ba0a$44a98b8f$544873fe$16631 (~=~) news.hispeed.ch, Stefan <stefan.RemoveThis (~=~) mus._INVALID_.ch wrote: André G. Isaak schrieb: word document, you can always copy it as an image rather than as text -- create a .pdf file and then open it up in a program like graphic Even easier: Make a screenshot from that word (cmd-shift-ctrl-4 copies a selected region to the clipboard) and paste it into Word. It depends on what you're ultimately doing with it -- a screen shot is limited by the resolution of your monitor, whereas a pdf with embedded fonts is not. André Thanks to all for your help. Arabic on a Mac seems to be a mess, can't imagine they sell many Macs east of Suez. Making the page from which I was copying into a PDF didn't help at all, neither did making a screenshot by the usual Mac method (Cmd-shift-4), both these methods messed up the letters (reversed them as I recall, maybe didn't join them correctly) but what did work was screenshot software called Capture Me. I had similar but not quite as bad problems with Hebrew, putting the text first into the Google bar helped for some reason... The problem is Word, not the Mac. Even when you have a valid Hebrew or Arabic keyboard layout installed (links on the Mellel web site), Word can't deal with R-L text input. Text Edit, which is otherwise a much more rudimentary text processor, can. -- AF "Non Sequitur U has a really, really lousy debate team." --artyw raises the bar on rec.sport.baseball |
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huanzuiju wrote at: 2006-07-04 02:47:59
copying Arabic into Word document on Mac | |||
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As others have said, it is MS Word's handling of Arabic on the Mac that is a mess. The Mac OS handles Arabic and other scripts beautifully, as do the Open Source Office alternatives, NeoOffice and Open Office. If you have a document that looks right on the Mac screen, and then either do Cmd-Shift-4 or - much better - print it to a pdf through the Print dialog, it will look OK as a PDF (I know, I do it daily). BTW: Safari has problems with Arabic, too. It refuses to join the letters correctly a lot of the time, so the text becomes unreadable. Firefox (and maybe others) does a much better job. -- /Jon I agree that you can make a PDF of Arabic, no problem. But I can't make a screenshot the usual cmd-shift-4 way and get the Arabic to come out right in Word (or TextEdit or Appleworks). But as mentioned it did work using Capture Me for some reason and this is good enough for my limited purposes. FYI Word for Mac seems much better for Chinese/Japanese/Korean than Arabic (though I do know the former languages and not a word of Arabic...) Michael |
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