Arabic Text and Fonts in InDesign CS

[Robert_Scott@adobeforums.com]

I have used InDesign CS to lay out books, for my customer, in English, Chinese and Spanish and Mac OS 10.3 and her mutli-languadge system fonts have served me well with InDesign.

Now my customer is having me lay-out a book in Arabic and I am running into problems when using InDesign.

I can open the Arabic Word file in Apple Text Edit 1.3 and the Arabic Text atomically displays with Apple's multi-languedge system font "Geeza Pro" reading from right to left and all the characters seem to be aligned to the same base line on each line.

But when I flow the text file into an InDesign CS document, and select the font Geeza Pro, the text does not flow from left to right and does not align properly as far as kerning.

Is the only way I can efficiently flow Arabic word processing into an InDesign CS layout is to buy and install InDesign CS ME or CS2 ME (Middle Eastern) addition?

[Marco_A_SantaMaria@adobeforums.com]

In short, YES!

[Bob Levine]

Yes.

Bob

[Robert_Scott@adobeforums.com]

Thanks,

There are suppliers that will let me try out a demo version to make sure it solves my issues before I commit and also let me upgrade from my US English version for an upgrade price.

Rob

[Bob Levine]

I think you had better check to see if you can do that. Remember the ME
versions are not sold by Adobe, they're sold by Winsoft.

Bob

[Diane_Burns@adobeforums.com]

For InDesign and all Adobe ME products, Winsoft uses a system of distributors & resellers worldwide. In the United States, it's Fontworld. Contact
<http://adobecs2me.com/>
or
<http://www.fontworld.com>.

Also, please look for my article in the next issue of InDesign Magazine, which is about publishing Middle Eastern languages using InDesign. You'll see some beautiful examples of ID layouts in ME languages!
<http://www.indesignmag.com>.
It's the issue due out early August, #13.

--Diane

[Robert_Scott@adobeforums.com]

Thanks,

I came across this supplier that operates out of Braintree, MA:

<http://aramedia.com/adobeindesignme.htm>

I downloaded the Demo version of IDCS2-ME, from this site, and as an InDesign CS user this is the first time I have taken any version of IDCS2 for a spin. This version is as much faster than IDCS as CS was faster than version 2. This latest version is a much more efficient app!

It also solves all text-flow and formatting issues I had with the two Arabic fonts I've been working with.

Since I have not upgraded to IDCS yet, would the ME version be the only version I will need for all my US English publication work as well as Arabic, Farsi/Persian, and Hebrew?

[Diane_Burns@adobeforums.com]

Hi Robert,

You can use the ME version for all your projects. In fact, Adobe makes it pretty inconvenient to use different language versions on the same machine. (You have to re-input the serial number for one language version after running the other.)

There are a couple of things you should be aware of, though. If you are passing an ME file to a user who has the English version. There will always be a "Missing Plug-ins: ME Enabler.framework " message, even if your file does not contain any ME text. Fortunately, the file can be opened with no problem or affect on your layout. So as long as the recipient of your file knows to do this, it should work fine.

If your file contains ME text, it will appear correctly to the English version user, assuming they have the same fonts, which they very well may not, but even so they cannot edit the text as the English version has little or no understanding of right-to-left composition.

This and more is covered in the upcoming article I mentioned in InDesign Magazine.

--Diane

[Robert_Scott@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, Diane.

All of my pre press files to the printer are press grade PDFs so I will probably by-pass native compatibility issues. Thanks so much for your contributions to my topic!

--Rob