Arabic on the Macintosh: Overview and Review
A. Kevin Reinhart, Dartmouth College

THE GOLDEN age of printing for Islamicists surely was the 19th century, when skilled European and occasionally Middle Eastern and Indian typesetters, could compose in as many fonts as an author could write. One reads Goldziher’s Die Zâhiriten with envy, not only for the meticulous transliterated Arabic and generous footnotes at the bottom of the page, but for the extensive Arabic quotations inserted into the text and notes. Since few of the Arabic texts he cited had been published, Goldziher provided his readers with his evidence in the original. Those were the days; and a new golden age for Islamicists may be upon us. With computers, not only footnotes on the page but transliteration and multiscript publishing are suddenly feasible and even simple.

The items discussed below take advantage of the flexibility of the Macintosh system to let even casual computer users produce Arabic. These programs make it possible for anyone easily to produce text in Islamic script (Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, Urdu, etc.) in camera-ready form.

To understand why those of us who use Macintoshes find them so helpful when we work with “exotic” languages, it is important to understand something about how a key pressed on the keyboard gives the writer a “k” or a kâf on the screen or printed page.

On older computers, pressing a key generated a number. If the second row from the bottom, fourth key from the right was pressed, the keyboard produced the electronic equivalent of a 6B107, which is the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) value of “k.” This number told the screen to display that particular character among the roughly 94 characters it knew how to draw on the screen. This same 6B107 in the file told the printing software and hardware to put a “k” on the page. The process worked something like this.

The Macintosh system simply added a couple of additional interpreters to the process so that the user can customize what happens after the key is pressed. The same key generates a number—let’s say 26. The interpreter then looks at a font and at a keyboard map. We may set the interpreter so that we get the same 6B107 and therefore “k,” which it sends to the screen and to the file for printing. Or we may change the keyboard maps so that we get a C6198, which generates (with the right font) a “k-with-a-dot-under-it” ( k); with a different interpreter we may instead produce E3227, which is the Arabic kâf or a Persian gâf and so forth.

Another part of the Macintosh system has the “resources” to tell the screen and file whether, when we type, the letters are to go from right-to-left, or left-to right. Finally, the codes in the interpreters can be used to invoke a naskii font, a kaaf or a Helvetica font in any combination of size and weight (thickness) we choose. The process works like this.

Indeed, typing Arabic on the computer is much simpler than typing Arabic on a conventional typewriter since Arabic touch-typing is hampered by the multiplicity of forms for the Arabic letter. The jîm for example has three forms on a typewriter, and one must learn to hit one of three keys, depending on whether the word is final, independent or medial/initial. On the Mac, Arabic typing is radically simplified by having only a single key for each letter. After the key is struck, the system software does a context-analysis and determines which of the three forms of the j m is appropriate; it then inserts it.

All of this means that to a degree rare since the 19th century, the form of the printed page is flexible and customizable, provided you have the right system software. For those who use Arabic-language software, Apple provides an Arabic system; there are Persian, Turkish and Urdu systems available as well. If you have a Mac and want or need to work in Arabic, then you should order the Arabic system and go to work. Here, I will discuss only Arabic; but everything said below holds true for all Arabic-script languages. Various-language Macintosh systems are available from Apple dealers and developers and from Apple itself. To work in Arabic, however, you not only need an Arabic system, you need Arabic-language software--particularly word processing software.

The items discussed below, in some fashion or other, take advantage of these multi-lingual capacities.

History of Arabic on the Mac

al-Kaatib (Version 1.3 1987, Eastern Language Systems) was the first Arabic word processor for the Macintosh and its fate is instructive. The team that developed al-Kaatib produced a good interface with the first script-interpreter for the Arabic Mac. The context analysis to choose the correct form of the letter was a particularly important breakthrough. Al-Kaatib was without doubt the unacknowledged source for many of the conventions of Mac Arabic design. Eastern Language Systems also designed quite handsome fonts that were certainly better than anything used in Europe in the 19th century to print Arabic.

The developer, Nels Draper, has told me that he put al-Kaatib on the market in preliminary form, hoping to use the cash flow from early sales to develop al-Kaatib into a sophisticated multi-lingual word processor. Sales, however, were a fraction of what he expected, and the reason was software piracy or, to call a spade a spade, theft. Copies of al-Kaatib were found all over the Middle East, Europe and on the computers of many American Islamicists and Arabists. Yet few had bothered paying for the software; as a result, everyone was hurt: Eastern Language Systems couldn’t make enough to keep developing al-Kaatib, so it never reached its potential, and consequently, the development of Arabic software was retarded by several years. Presently al-Kaatib is frozen in its 1987 state, with no certain future. Eastern Language Systems has instead turned to Windows on the IBM compatible systems and has copy-protected al-Kaatib—al-Duwali, as they now call it—with a dongle (an electronic device installed on the outside of the computer to insure that the program is not used illegally).

Every Arabic-script Mac user owes a debt to Eastern Language Systems for their pioneering efforts, which suggested the value of the Mac for Arabic users. Alas, this experiment also established definitively the untrustworthiness of the Macintosh Arabic language-using community.

The Future of Arabic on the Macintosh

Languages other than European have always been an afterthought for computer developers, but in the global economy, indifference to other languages is no longer possible. A word processor designed to sell worldwide ought to be able to write Japanese, Chinese and Arabic as well as Latin characters. This, of course, is easier said than done. The new world order in computer systems has been particularly limited by the ASCII standards described above, which are awkward with Eastern European languages, clumsy with Semitic languages and hopeless for Far Eastern languages. Recently, however, a number of computer companies have formed a consortium to develop something called “unicode.”

Unicode is a single set of standard numerical “addresses” for all known language systems. Not only will there be a standard code for English and Arabic, but also for Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Armenian, even Akkadian and any other language conceivable. Unicode will make communicating in odd languages across computer systems easier and will make fonts, systems and programs easily applicable with whatever language used. RLIN, the master bibliography data base, is planning to implement Unicode within the next couple of years, and Apple also is planning to install Unicode in its operating system within the next two years. With RLIN in native-language format, we may be able to search a national union catalog of Arabic books in the original script as well as in transliteration before the turn of the century.

Arabic System 6.1 and System 7.0

The current Arabic system software (the equivalent of DOS on IBM-type PCs) for the Macintosh is numbered 7.0. Mr. Bustami Khir called my attention to an anomaly in the script manager that has not yet been corrected: if one inserts a vowel within a ligature, the results are just wrong: Kaf then lam then alif together produce the proper ligature . If, however, you try to mark the l m with a shaddah, you get kaf-lam and then the ordinary final alif as if it had been written after a b—very ugly.

In mid-October, Apple releases System 7.1, the first multi-script (their terminology) operating system. This is a wonderful advance for exotic-language users. With the standard operating system, one obtains “localization modules” for the language desired. These, together with appropriate fonts, are dropped into the system folder. Software capable of using the localization elements will then perform in Arabic, Persian, Urdu or whatever. The calendar will register common-era or hijri dates. The numbers will be either Latin or Arabic script numerals, and sorting will be in the order of the Arabic alphabet. A control panel allows the menus to be flipped back and forth between Arabic, for instance, and English. This development is precisely what Arabists, Persianists and the like have needed for years; the labor of teaching DOS, Unix, TeX and the like to use Arabic scripts, to go right-to-left and to justify on the right margin, is now behind us. A major operating system is ready to go in any language we wish.

I have only been able to test the final beta version, and it seemed to work well. Earlier versions had been unstable, so bugs may remain; but this is the format to which Apple is committed for the life of the operating system. Evidently WordPerfect, Word and others may soon be adapted for the Arabic modules.

Arabic Wordprocessing Programs

Presently I am aware of five Arabic word processing programs. Three are discussed below, with some other useful Arabic/Islamicist utilities. Unless otherwise noted, I have tested the items below with Arabic Systems 6.07 and 6.1.

WinText: Multilingual Word Processing Program. Version 2.5 tested (current version, 2.7). Unisoft (Grenoble, France) distributed in the US by Paradigm Software, PO Box 1607, Cambridge, MA 02238 (phone 617-661-7979). Cost $175. English or Arabic documentation. Unisoft, a French firm, seems to be in the forefront of language-independent software. WinText is a simple-to-use word processor, available in Arabic, Japanese and Latin-character versions. An Arabist can probably get it running right out of the box, if she or he has ever used MacWrite or any other Macintosh word processor. It uses the ruler metaphor to set up the page display (single or double space, first line indent, for example) and is very straightforward, uncomplicated and reasonably sized as well. It has a particularly good search and replace capability, better than many English-language word processors. This is the wordprocessor, I would suggest, for those who will write letters, take notes, prepare exams and exercises and the like, in English or Arabic or any combination. The version I tested does not handle footnotes, and its formatting capabilities are modest, but for those who have a small machine (Macintosh SE, Classic or below) or who see their computer as a utility rather than an avocation, this might be the wordprocessor to use.

The program is copy protected by a key disk, which allows you to make only two copies that can be opened without the use of the disk. (If, as I did, you lose a disk or a partition, then one of your copies is lost). Menus are in Arabic or English.

al-Nashir al-Maktabi: Arabic Desktop Publishing Program. Version 4.1 tested. Diwan Science and Information Technology, Ltd. (London, England); distributed in the US by Paradigm Software, PO Box 1607, Cambridge, MA 02238 (phone 617-661-7979). Cost $560. Documentation in Arabic, or standard Ready, Set, Go documentation in English. Menus in English or Arabic. Al-Nashir is a desktop publishing program, and in terms of ease-of-use it is at the other end of the spectrum from WinText. The metaphor on the screen is a layout artist's pasteup sheets. With this program you can design sophisticated brochures, layout and design a book (something many of us will be doing, as it is the only reasonable way to get an edited text into print in Arabic these days) or publish a newspaper. One of the most widely-read international Arabic newspapers is typeset and published in London using al-Nashir. Graphics can be both imported and produced within al-Nashir, as can bilingual text, and for books, it is possible to number, footnote and display Arabic/Latin text fairly much as desired. There is, however, no automatic footnote numbering routine.

After al-Nashir is opened, the page template is defined. The text is either typed in or imported, then edited and modified in a layout that is very much what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG). Presses, Middle East Centers and other institutions that produce elaborate Arabic documents will be the most likely users of this powerful but demanding program. Copy protection is with a dongle, a device that attaches either between the keyboard and the computer, or to the SCSI (hard disk) port on the back of the computer.

AllScript, distributed by Davka Corporation (phone 312-465-4070). I was unable to test All-Script, which is distributed only by Davka Software. I am told that users of it are quite happy, but my own experience with Davka, and the experience of colleagues, suggests that a more helpful and trustworthy distributor might make it worthwhile to buy another program, elsewhere.

Nisus Arabic. Nisus Software, Inc. 107 Cedros Ave., Solana Beach, CA 92075-1900 (phone 619-481-1477; fax 619-481-6154; applelink D0405). Cost $495. Academic discounts available when purchasing three or more units. This is the only full-featured Arabic wordprocessor I have found. English language Nisus competes with, for example, Microsoft Word and FullWrite and Nisus users are very loyal and loud in its praises. Its distinctive feature seems to be the extent to which it can be customized to do exactly the odd task that a particular user wants it to do, with extensive macro routines and remarkable search and replace capabilities (find every word "withering" in the context of "glance" and change it to italics "sullen"; find every dars and change to durisa). Amazingly, almost every one of these Nisus standard features is available in the Arabic/English version. (Nisus also distributes a Hebrew version.) It is a pleasure to be able to do everything in Arabic that one regularly does in English word processing, and there are some remarkable Arabic-specific features as well, such as searching by root (somewhat reliable), insertions of keshidahs, etc. Arabic Nisus also has many desktop publishing features, such as the ability to produce and import graphics and wrap text around them, gutters and odd/even headers. One can develop one's own glossaries, so that typing rhml will produce rahamahu ll h for instance. This program also has extensive indexing and table of contents capabilities; it can number pages, number lines and display text in nearly every format. It may not be quite as technically adept as al-Nashir for desktop publishing, but it is far easier to use; it is not as easy to use as WinText, but it is more powerful. It is certainly the best Arabic wordprocessor on the market.

Copy protection is via a "dongle," but Nisus supports only Macintosh Classics and beyond. Those with Mac Pluses, SEs and the like are out of luck. (This decision is a mistake on the part of Nisus, as many academic users operate at the low end of the computer hardware spectrum.)

Nisus plans to announce version 3.4, somewhat improved, when Apple officially releases system software 7.1. The program will be compatible with the multi-script software. A full upgrade to 4.0 is expected in l993 (for both Hebrew and Arabic). Nisus's eventual goal is to produce a range of Arabic-capable word processors: a compact and inexpensive one designed with Powerbook users particularly in mind; a medium version with full features; and a full version, equally capable of typing with all right-to-left languages, all left-to-right languages and what Apple calls two-byte scripts—i.e., Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

Other Arabic-language tools

WinFile: Multilingual Database Program, Version 1.0 tested. Unisoft (Grenoble, France) distributed in the US by Paradigm Software, PO Box 1607, Cambridge, MA 02238 (phone 617-661-7979). Cost $225. English documentation or Arabic. WinFile is a flat (as opposed to relational) database, although files can be linked together to approximate a relational database. Judging from the documentation, it is designed for simple inventory or personal records. I have limited database experience, but this reminds me most of something like “Microsoft File,” although the forms generation seems somewhat more flexible. A form is designed (name, death date, city of residence, for instance) and then the data is entered within the fields established. Individual cards are linked together, and data can be compiled from all the cards by field. It seems to work well, though I have not tested it extensively. It would be quite useful for someone doing extensive biographical or bibliographical work in Arabic-order. It works bilingually and is reasonably easy to learn.

METimes. (Middle Eastern language transliteration font) Paradigm Software, PO Box 1607, Cambridge, MA 02238 (phone 617-661-7979). Cost $70. Site licenses available. English documentation. Developed by two graduate students in things Islamic partly as a service to the Islamic studies community, this fine set of Islamicate-language transliteration characters has hardly repaid its creators for their effort. It is found all over the world, but very few users have bothered to pay for the fonts they have taken. I was shocked to see that a prominent orientalist serial produced in the Middle East is typeset with METimes, a fact unacknowledged and of course unpaid-for. With new keyboard assignment software, METimes remains an excellent vehicle for producing word-processed documents with transliterated characters. With some kerns and ligatures, it could be a fine type-setting language. The developers have given up on it, however, without producing either an Adobe Type-1 or TrueType version (the most current types of fontware) because of the discouraging theft of their product. Once more, the piracy of software has hurt the development of tools specific to our rather small field.

Dragoman. A utility to convert non-standard "al-Kaatib" files into Macintosh standard Arabic files for use with other word processors. Free with purchase of other software from Paradigm software, otherwise, $40. Dragoman is a bit unsteady and seems not to convert all Kaatib files, but it's a very useful little program for those who used al-Kaatib extensively before there was anything else.

Hijri Dates. $5 from Computing Services, 6028 Kiewit Computation Center, Dartmouth College. A small utility (DA) to convert from hijri to common era dates and vice versa. Currently works on all Latin character systems; it is being implemented for the Arabic system as well.

Alt Keyboards/ME Alt Keyboards. A keyboard mapping utility designed for use with METimes, System 6.x and below. With it, the METimes font can be invoked for transliterating Arabic, Persian, Turkish or generic Middle Eastern. Send a disk, a self-addressed stamped envelope, a photocopy of your purchase receipt for METimes and $15 (for Dartmouth) to A. Kevin Reinhart, 6036 Thornton Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755-3592.

With the computer, we can hope to see an efflorescence of textual editions, Islamic-language databases, and other aids that will revolutionize our study and the presentation of our findings. Those Dutch or Egyptian typesetters who delighted in setting text arcana are gone, but thanks to the computer we may eventually hope to be as flexible in the production of books as we were before the age of type.