Persian Unicode Fonts and Keyboard for Mac XFontsWindows and Linux users may prefer to get font info here. Free Unicode-Compliant, Beautiful and Fully functional Persian fonts for Mac (and Windows & Linux!): http://wiki.irmug.org/index.php/X_Series_2 (zipped) If you are
uncomfortable with dealing with zipped files, you can get the four parts
of each font here: After downloading the above fonts, now you need to actually install them. If the file is zipped, click on it to unzip. In most cases -depending on
how you download a zipped file- it will unzip itself right at the end of the
download. But if not, double click on it (from its download location on the
desktop) to unzip it. Warning: when you email someone, better to not use they special fonts. If your friend does not have these exact fonts, they will see them in some other font which their computer will choose. It is always best to stick with system fonts for email or websites. KeyboardWindows users please get keyboard info here. You may have already found the keyboards for Persian (more info) that come installed on your Mac. Or, you may have even figured out how to set up your own keyboard, putting each character wherever you like. However, in the case that you aren't quite sure what you're doing, it would be best if you get this new keyboard from http://idisk.mac.com/behnam-Public?view=web and click on the file name: "ISIRI-9147" to download the keyboard. This is a keyboard which is ISIRI 9147 compatible (more info). If you use an ISIRI 9147-compatible keyboard, it means that if whatever you type gets passed around via email or the internet, it will be fully searchable as well as being a pleasure to read and a sign you care that Persian is typed properly. Since this keyboard will likely be shipped with future editions of Mac, you might as well be an early bird and get used to it now! After you have downloaded "ISIRI-9147" compatible keyboard from
http://idisk.mac.com/behnam-Public?view=web, you need to move it to: In case you would like to first take the above-mentioned ISIRI-9147 compatible keyboard for a test drive before downloading and installing it, you can try out this virtual simulation: http://sartre2.byu.edu/persian/editor/editor.php Some of the characters you can now properly type include: Persian Ye (on the d key). You will notice, no more 2 dots on the final Ye or the Ezāfe which is the unfortunate result of people typing the Arabic Ye (or worse, Alef Maqsura) instead of the Persian Ye. Arabic Ye: صداي خوبي Persian Ye: صدای خوبی(Don't worry, if you need it, Arabic Yā' is still available, just a little out-of-reach on shift d.) ZWNJ (on the shift-spacebar), also known as nim-fāsele or half-space more info here: With ZWNJ, you can now type بچّههاinstead of using a full word space and incorrectly typing بچّه هاSmall hamze/ye above he for ezāfe (located on shift n) گربهٔ کوچکinstead of the oft-seen eye sore: گربة کوچکNote: to be standards-compliant, you must not use the deprecated one-glyph variant which had the he and the small hamze/ye as one unit. This is completely non-standard. Do not use this character, no matter how much prettier you may think it looks!! More info here on he + hamze. Also note that if you get the fonts mentioned at the top of this page, you will get a prettier shape with a small ye instead of a hamze for the character in question. Quotation marks (on shift l and shift k) so you can now type «شهر هرت»instead of "شهر هرت"The above-mentioned fonts, keyboard and even the directions were all provided by Behnam R. You can find him over at the Iranian Mac Users Group.
The information below was compiled between 2004 and 2007 and is now completely out-of-date and provided only for historical record. |
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1. Submitted on 21 May 2004 by Behnam, behnam@videotron.qc.ca (Updated on 27 May 2004 with a few additions by Ali Samadi, alisamadi@web.de )The new Mac operating system version 10 (X) is built on top of Unix and is completely a different beast compared to previous versions up to OS 9 therefore you should completely differentiate between the quality and the level of Persian support in Macintosh before X and after X. All the established Persian supports on Mac belong to previous system and they don't run on OS 10. Apple, knowing that this giant leap will leave a lot of Mac users behind (not necessarily minding Persian users) with a magical trickery, managed to include OS 9 within its X system. Meaning that OS 9 can run within OS X. Although it is very convenient to be able to run old programs on OS X, but essentially they are running on OS 9 (called "Classic" environment) within OS X and this is a transitional and temporary solution, until software developers produce the X version of the programs they produced for OS 9 and before. If software developers were "upgrading" their products with Mac transition from OS 8 to OS 9, this time around they have to re-write them completely for OS X and this is the difficulty for marginal market products. By and large, this transitional period for Roman-based language users is already over and most major applications and programs are already available in X version. RTL languages are so far left behind and the first and obvious reason is lack of market appeal. There is no more development or even support for OS 9 based applications. The future is OS 10 which has not yet materialized for less common languages users and at the same time the past (OS 9) is rapidly fading. It is not a very easy time for Mac users of marginal languages but the fantastic potentials of the new OS X system keeps me very optimistic. (See below for detailed answers.)
WORD-PROCESSING1. Is it possible to type complete and correct Persian including ZWNJ and punctuation in a text editor/word processor that comes with the Mac itself? If yes, on which versions of Mac? Apple "Persian keyboard" standard doesn't have ZWNJ. It has a plain space instead. This is true for both OS 9 (classic) and OS X. ISIRI however has it where it's supposed to be. ISIRI is not available for OS 9 and Classic applications. (see Keyboard section below.) Some fonts also offer a temporary workaround solution for this missing ZWNJ. This is about the latest version of Mac OS, which is Panther or OS 10.3 3: The word processor that comes with Mac (Apple Works) doesn't support RTL (right-to-left direction) texts, nor Microsoft Office for Mac. The text editor that comes with Mac however supports RTL and it's called TextEdit. It doesn't have any problem with ZWNJ as long as text orientation is set to RTL. As soon as the text orientation is reverted to LTR, the text flow breaks down at any ZWNJ point. Same thing occurs with mixed Persian-Roman bi-lingual texts, particularly at punctuation points. This in itself is not a big deal if you work in RTL text and stay there. The problem seems to be in transferring the text in another medium (for email, web page etc.) OS 10 seems to be unable to retain RTL information about a text in transferring the content to different medium. So yes, you can type Persian text without problem but exporting it without trouble is another story.
2. What is the font situation like? Additional fonts available online? For purchase? Free? Yes, there are some fonts available online (free). I made them up in a way that they run on OS 10.3 they don't run on any other platform. (They also have a temporary workaround to make the ZWNJ possible to type in these fonts.) To my knowledge, there is no professional and commercial font available for OS X as of yet. The only professional font covering Persian range (except that it lacks superscript alif, also known as dagger alif) is the system font Geeza Pro included with OS.
3. Is the default keyboard ok? Can you customize it? Is there also a phonetic input option? There are two Persian keyboards already available with OS 10.3 One is Mac Persian standard and the other is ISIRI Persian standard (convenient for Mac users with PC background). They are both very good but they don't cover Hamzeh and superscript Alef. I produced two customized keyboards along with the fonts above mentioned which are downloadable online. (see below) They contain those characters along with a handful of other characters which are available in those fonts but can not be accessed by Apple standard keyboards. I personally don't know of any user friendly utility that allows easily the creation of customized keyboard layout. But I must say I didn't shop around lately. These goodies come out in daily basis. The phonetic keyboard layout is available and it's called Persian Trans. You may find it in the web site that I'll present to you below. (Ali Samadi adds: A freeware program, Keyboard Builder which can be downloaded from http://homepage.mac.com/poorant79/software/ can be used to create or change Keyboard layouts.)
4. What, why and where are Nisus Writer and Mellel (and others)? Can they be used as/instead of an upgrade with older versions of Macs that don't do Persian text correctly? Nisus Writer was a very good word processor for OS 9. The version they produced for OS X so far, doesn't support RTL text. Remember that they have to write the whole thing from scratch. Mellel (it's not a Persian or Arabic name as I too once thought it was! It's a Hebrew name meaning "word" I guess the closest translation in Persian is "kalaam") didn't have this problem because it first came out after OS X. Everything Mellel has is geared to OS X. It's a very good word processor with RTL support and original interface and right now it is in commercial beta stage. Meaning it's good enough to buy it and use it, but it is still in developing stage. There is no other word processor for OS X. Currently there is a project in implementing KOffice, in OS X environment www.Persiankde.org/ but I don't know much about it. For more information visit Iranian Mac User Group at http://www.irmug.org (formerly at http://home.tiscali.de/ali.samadi/ ) and find a review about KOffice. You can also find there quite a bit useful information and free and commercial downloads from the site or links to other sites. You can also find there some other word processors with Persian support (OS 9) and you can get the link to download my fonts and keyboards above mentioned (for OS X) and other free fonts (for OS 9 and some applications on OS X) You can visit the Mellel word processor here: http://www.redlers.com/index.html (Ali Samadi adds: In the Future, for Near East Region customers including Iran, Apple will bundle a word-processor with Mac computers from the Company "Skillsoft" which is based in Teheran and Dubai. This company also produces also other applications to enable Persian or Arabic in products like Photoshop, Illustrator or any other Latin Application. Their website www.softskill.ae is presently under construction. I will be testing some of there products soon and will put the results on the Iranian Mac User Group Website )
5. Are there Mac support groups? Is there a way to contact Apple Persian support for feedback on Word-processing issues? Other helpful links? I already mentioned Iranian Mac User Group. Ali Samadi set up this site and he could use any help he can get. I don't know of any other. Bugs and problems can be reported to http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/ and I encourage every Mac user to do so. But this line doesn't reply to reports. It's just the official place for gathering information for future developments. There is also knowledge base support groups that discuss various matters about Macintosh. These discussions can be accessed within the http://www.apple.com/ site. It is also a good idea to share the problems in Iranian Mac User Group discussion page. The bug reports can be refined there and then be reported to Apple, via different channels. I personally know of one person in Apple developing team who is very responsive but I don't think she'd appreciate if I post her address in public! For Mellel users, there is a Yahoo User Group and its developers are extremely responsive.
WEB VIEWINGIt is important to keep in mind that there are almost no real Persian websites one can use as a test for the browser. That is because most webmasters have dumbed down their site to make it work on Win9x and also to compensate for buggy fonts and general lack of complete Persian fonts. Therefore one rarely finds ZWNJ, Hamza above Heh, Persian numbers, small vowels, Persian Yeh, Persian Kaf, etc.1. Is it possible to see Persian websites correctly? Even harakat, punctuation, ZWNJ? On which Mac/Browser(s)? Apple browser Safari is the only one I've used so far (on OS X) and it doesn't have a problem with texts and harakat (OS 10.3), depending on the design of the web page, the text flow and particularly punctuation marks may be wrong. ZWNJ has indeed the most damaging effect but its effect on different pages is not consistent (or even present) all the time. For someone without any expertise it's almost impossible to pinpoint the problems. There have been reports of harakat not positioning properly, especially when there is a ZWNJ in the line. (This is also a known Windows-Mozilla issue.) There are quite a few other browsers for OS X but since I didn't use them I can't say how good they are. For Iranian Mac User Group, Mozilla is recommended.
2. Is the default font ok? Easy to specify your own if not? Default font Geeza Pro is more than ok, it's very good indeed and I'd say this font is more adapted to Persian web viewing than Persian text writing. This is good news since in Safari (I don't know about the other browsers) it's not easy to change the font. With the last update of OS X (10.3.3) it can be done. Before that it was impossible. But even now it doesn't give a consistent result and many pages open with Geeza anyway even though I assigned another font. For those Mac users who stayed with OS 9 and are now contemplating to upgrade to OS X, I recommend to hang on until upcoming OS 10.4 (Tiger) which will be available in near future. When Apple runs out of wild cats, we may get to something substantially better!
Behnam |
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2. Submitted on 21 May 2004 by Knut S. Vikør, knut.vikor@smi.uib.noThe below is provisional, I use OS X 10.2 occasionally and have touched 10.3; and am primarily concerned with Arabic, rather than Persian. Perhaps someone else can complete or correct. WORD-PROCESSING1. Is it possible to type complete and correct Persian including ZWNJ and punctuation in a text editor/word processor that comes with the Mac itself? If yes, on which versions of Mac? Text editor: yes, with limitations below, both in OS 9 and OS X (SimpleText / Text; a very simple text editor). Bundled word processor (AppleWorks sometimes bundled): No, in neither. Punctuation: OK (Mac OS 9 uses separate character IDs for Arabic/Persian numerals and all punctuation, rather than duplicating the Latin IDs as 8859-x does). Harakat: basic [lacks superscript alif also known as dagger alif, has problems using double harakat (shadda+vowel). Some very expensive fonts alleviate this]. ZWNJ: I am sitting on an OS 9 machine now, with Persian added, and can see no way of producing this. The opposite, "fake medial" can be done with a lengthener character, but zero-width would probably only be doable with a zero-width space character, and I cannot see that any of the fonts I have use this obvious escape route. As for OS X, it *may* be that it has been added, but I rather suspect not, as RTL is clearly only a half-way house yet. But to be verified. I have also found no way to write hamza on heh - not in the standard fonts, anyway. These caveats go for all the below, no ZWNJ or hamza-on-heh unless there is something I do not know. You do not ask the general question, "Does Mac OS 9 / OS X support Persian"?, to which the answers would be: - Under OS 9: Yes, adequate support; Persian is a separate "language kit" option on the Install disk. Arabic fonts contain basic Persian characters, but there are separate Persian fonts & keyboard layout. But many applications block proper handling of right-to-left scripts. Under OS X / Classic (OS 9 running in emulation under OS X): As OS 9 if you can get it installed. However, installation of optional language kits in Classic may be difficult on recent Macs (those that boot only under OS X). Under OS X / carbon applications: No support. By "carbon" I actually mean applications that do not support direct Unicode input; as most carbon applications - still the majority of OS X applications - fall in that category. They have no access to any right-to-left language. Under OS X / cocoa applications [i.e. here: those supporting Unicode input]: Basic support for Arabic from 10.2 up, not yet complete [Web browsers fare badly: Only Safari seems OK] but most features will work. I do not have OS X in front of me, so I cannot say just now how good the Persian support is (separation of Persian numeral shapes etc.), but suppose that it should be similar to OS 9support when using adequate Persian fonts etc. (to be verified). 2. What is the font situation like? Additional fonts available online? For purchase? Free? Not much available for free, as far as I know, but there are a few companies that sell fonts. Mostly Arabic, Persian versions will have to be checked. Arabic fonts will normally contain some Persian characters (fewer will have Urdu characters); but will not have Persian shapes of "shared characters", such as numerals etc. They will mostly be OS 9 fonts, which will work under OS X, within the limits of what OS 9 allowed. 3. Is the default keyboard ok? Can you customize it? Using a tool such as ResEdit, you can modify or create your own keyboard layout. Works for 9 and X (with some reservations; some report difficulties). Is there also a phonetic input option? There used to bundled an "Arabic-Qwerty" layout which may suffice, am not sure if it is still bundled with OS X. No "Persian-Qwerty", unfortunately. You may possibly create your own with ResEdit. 4. What, why and where are Nisus Writer and Mellel (and others)? NisusWriter is the optimal word processor for non-European scripts under OS 9 and Classic. Does not work under OS X (except in Classic). NisusWriter Express is the "OS X version" of NisusWriter, it is actually a new application written from scratch and still far behind old NW in usefulness. It does not "officially" support right-to-left, waiting for Apple to finalize its support, but should in reality handle basic stuff (but does e.g. not, like NW Classic, inverse ruler settings when switching to RTL fonts, and similar.) Mellel is currently probably the best application for right-to-left scripts in OS X, and should give fairly adequate use of Persian / Arabic. Both NW Express and Mellel are cocoa programs. Can the above-mentioned word processors be used as/instead of an upgrade with older versions of Macs that don't do Persian text correctly? I do not understand what you mean here. For one thing, older Macs do RTL better than new Macs, at least for the moment; for the other, script handling is OS based; what Nisus and Mellel do is just give better access to the script tools in the OS (such as reversing ruler settings based on script, not standard in the OS). They cannot add script support that is not in the OS; or at least that is rather pointless. The reason we use them is just that standard Latin-based word processors clash and mess up the OS's script handling (that is why text editors invariably give better RTL support than most non-aware word processors, because they leave more of the text handling to the OS resources and do not add mess like MS Word and actually most other word-processors do.) 5. Are there Mac support groups? Mac support groups, yes. Mac for Persian / Arabic, not to my knowledge. WEB VIEWINGIt is important to keep in mind that there are almost no real Persian websites one can use as a test for the browser. That is because most webmasters have dumbed down their site to make it work on Win9x and also to compensate for buggy fonts and general lack of complete Persian fonts. Therefore one rarely finds ZWNJ, Hamza above Heh, Persian numbers, small vowels, Persian Yeh, Persian Kaf, etc.1. Is it possible to see Persian websites correctly? Even harakat, punctuation, ZWNJ? On which Mac/Browser(s)? The latest version of Safari under OS X 10.3 is your best bet. Under OS 9, use iCab , this does not work under OS X, or possibly Netscape 7 (not earlier). 2. Is the default font ok? Easy to specify your own if not? With the caveat for OS X / LucidaGrande in some applications (above) - I am not sure why, but it should be a transition problem that make them - in particular browsers - not "see" Arabic/Persian specific fonts, only the the one and default "multiplane" font LucidaGrande. 3. Support groups? Apple support? Other useful links? http://www.smi.uib.no/ksv - my web site for "the Arabic Macintosh" I am not sure about Apple, I doubt that they have much support, nor how much they actually do in-house for Middle Eastern script support; at least the standard fonts are not made in-house (I believe Diwan and Winsoft in England/France have been working on them). But that is anecdotal; perhaps there is a hidden Arabic section somewhere. Knut S. Vikør |
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3. Submitted on 19 May 2004 by Neema Agha, ubern@mac.comIn response to your inquiry regarding the situation for Farsi on the Mac, I thought that I would share my experiences. I've been mostly disappointed. My father and I used Mac OS 7-9 to produce 3 Farsi texts. We used NisusWriter and the Arabic/Farsi language kits. Mac OS X 10.0-10.2 provided little to no support for right to left languages. 10.2 introduced some Unicode capabilities but without the ability to enter text from right to left. 10.3 has improved the situation but it is far from bug free. I've reported these problems to Apple and have not received any feedback at this time. The leaders in multi-lingual word processing on the Mac, Nisus http://www.nisus.com/ have completely rewritten their word processor but at this time, do not offer support for Farsi/Arabic/Hebrew. Mellel, created by Redlers http://www.redlers.com/ does provide this ability and it seems that it will more than adequately replace NisusWriter. For some reason, these developers seem to be able to bypass flaws that Nisus has not been able to bypass. Display of web pages seems to work very well on Safari. A nice feature of OSX is the ability to print any document as a PDF without the use Adobe Acrobat. This works in every application within OSX. I've also found a way to have documents printed as postscript files within OS9 that OSX then converts into PDF format. Neema
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4. Submitted on Wed, 2 Jun 2004 by Eva Braiman, evaraquel@optonline.netMore tips:
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5. Submitted on Thurs, 3 Jun 2004 by Behnam, behnam@videotron.qc.caWill Parker's (English) website: http://macartisan.typepad.com/cupertino/2004/05/mac_office_2004.html |
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6. Submitted on Thurs, 9 Dec 2004 by Connie, irina@u.washington.eduMac Persian users are advised to download the new Firefox browser which surpasses Safari for viewing Persian websites. |
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7. Submitted on Tues, 9 Aug 2005 by Behnam, behnam@videotron.qc.ca |
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Mac users can check out this new English-language forum devoted to Middle Eastern Scripts on a Mac. |
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