InDesign Arabic support

[Geke]

I’m continuing from the previous posts about InDesign.
Basically, this is all off-topic for the Ukelele group, although it did start with one user discovering that the multiple-character output he had assigned to a key in Ukelele didn’t work in Arabic script in InDesign.
So far it’s not clear which version of OS and InDesign he was using.

Other topics:
1. InDesign support for Arabic script in general
2. InDesign support for combining diacritics

1. Arabic.

From my experience, InDesign CS6 (standard English version) offers basic support for Arabic when using the "Adobe world-ready paragraph composer".

This page:
https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/arabic-hebrew.html
probably talks about InDesign CC only and also about the most recent version – it’s not specified.
Anyway, the list of features suggests very good support for Arabic and Hebrew scripts.

The first line on that page reads:

"New and improved features for working in Arabic and Hebrew are available in the Middle East and North African edition of this software."

How to install this edition is described here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/access-install-hebrew-arabic-indesign-illustrator-CC.html

2. Combining diacritics

Next post :)

[Geke]

I don’t know about InDesign CC, but InDesign CS6 has some support for diacritical marks, but only if one assigns the "Adobe world-ready paragraph composer" to the concerned text run.

You get an idea from the attached picture.
In words: the horizontal positioning looks good, but vertical positioning doesn’t work at all:
Accents don’t stack and they don’t adjust to a character’s height (as in letters with ascenders or descenders, or with upper-case letters).

Again: support may have improved in (recent versions of) CC.

[fqfon...@gmail.com]

So far it’s not clear which version of OS and InDesign he was using.

Mac OS 10.12.6.

InDesign CC 2017 latest version (Arabic support enabled).

Haven't got a chance to test the keyboard layout on older versions of InDesign. 

Problematic key combination being Shift+C.

Thanks and regards.

[Gé van Gasteren]

Mac OS 10.12.6.
InDesign CC 2017 latest version (Arabic support enabled).

Ah, very good, I think that makes the context info complete!

It still works with CS6 (standard edition, not ME) so my guess is that the support for this (producing a sequence of characters with one keystroke in a Ukelele-created keyboard layout) disappeared between CS6 and CC, or maybe with one of the CC updates.

I’m still on the lookout for an Apple keyboard layout with multiple-character output on (at least) one of its keys, so we can compare the behavior between Apple-format keyboard layouts and XML-format keyboard layouts. Who knows, Apple’s keyboard layouts may support this feature "even" in CC.

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[Tom]

On Wednesday, October 18, 2017 at 8:12:11 AM UTC-7, Geke wrote:

I’m still on the lookout for an Apple keyboard layout with multiple-character output on (at least) one of its keys

I think this can be found on layouts for Indic scripts like Telugu.  This list identifies a few

https://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/keyboards/chars2keyboards.html 

[Gé van Gasteren]

I’m still on the lookout for an Apple keyboard layout with multiple-character output on (at least) one of its keys

I think this can be found on layouts for Indic scripts like Telugu.  This list identifies a few

​:​

https://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/keyboards/chars2keyboards.html 

​Thanks, Tom!

As a non-programmer, I hate it when people "forget" to put a proper title on pages, so you have to read it through to find out what it’s all about! At the top of the linked page, something was written about XML, which further confused me. In general, I wonder why they still use all those abbreviations, when these days there’s no need for them!

Anyway, in the end I figured it out.

So, if fqfont1439@gmail.com is still reading, he can test if Apple-format keyboard layouts do better than Ukelele-generated ones in outputting character sequences in InDesign CC 2017:

– Install keyboard layout Arabic - AZERTY

– When in a text box in InDesign CC, activate this layout.

– Press the CapsLock key, then type Shift-T, Shift-G, or Shift-B.

Each of these keystrokes produces/should produce a two-character sequence: Lam + a combining diacritical mark:

 لإ لأ لآ   

Alternative test: Install the keyboard layout for Uyghur language.

There is one key in this layout that produces a three-character sequence: CapsLock down + Option-T : لله

Please post your results :)