How to Read Arabic on the Web

You can view Arabic text on the World Wide Web if you have the right operating system and/or the right browser or plug-in. Here are few options of Arabic Browsers for Various Operating Systems:

• MS Arabic Windows 95 (Enabled or Localized) and MS Windows NT 4.0 Arabic Enabled:
  use one of the following:

  • Arabic MS Internet Explorer 3.02 (stand alone browser, preserves formatting)
    Microsoft's Web Address: http://www.microsoft.com
    Here's a direct link to the download area (minimum install. File name =armsie302.exe, size=5.86 MB). It works for both Arabic and English pages and switches automatically according to language as specified in the header.
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 Preview for Middle East: Works with both Arabic Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 Arabic Enabled. The full installation contains FrontPage Express which is modified to handle Arabic HTML'ing. IE4.0 Supports Arabic and English and is updated for stylesheets and dynamic HTML. Here's a direct link to the download area
  • Windows NT 4.0 Arabic Enabled: This version comes with MSIE 3.02 Arabic already with the system.
  • Sakhr's Sindbad (requires 32-bit Netscape V. 3)
    Netscape: http://www.netscape.com
    Sakhr's Web Address: http://www.sakhr.com
  • Alis Tango (Alis Technologies)
    Alis's Web Address: http://www.alis.com
  • Accent's Multilingual Mosaic
    Accent's Web Address: http://www.accentsoft.com
  
  
  You may be able to read Arabic text on Arabic Windows 95 using an English browser like Netscape or MSIE, but the text will be left aligned and formatting along with layout will be lost. Numbers will not display correctly, nor in the right place. To be able to do that, you'll need to change font settings.
  
  For version 3.0 of Netscape: choose Options, General Preferences and then the FONTS tab. Choose USER DEFINE from the list as shown in Figure 1. Choose an Arabic font for each of the Proportional and Fixed fonts. Good examples Traditional Arabic for proportional and Courier (Arabic) for fixed. Click OK and close the dialog box.
  In the Options menu, under Document Encoding (Figure 2), choose User Defined (make sure a check box is present next to it). In Netscape 4.x, preferences are under the EDIT menu.

• MS Windows2000 (NT 5):
  Windows2000 (originally NT 5) contains support for many languages including Arabic. The built in browser is Arabic aware and the task becomes easier. However, pages with untidy HTML code will not display well.
• MS English Windows 95, 98 or Windows NT (may work on Pan European versions as well):
  

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5+ works under Windows 98 and NT4, for both viewing and entering Arabic text (in web searches, etc.), if one installs the browser with Arabic support and sets up the Arabic keyboard in Windows (regional setting/input locales). With this configuration, one can also read and compose Arabic documents in MS Word 2000. [Thanks to Jonathan Rodgers, Head, Near East Division, University of Michigan Library.]
  In most cases (unless you change system fonts to Arabic), page titles will show as ?????). Please remember:
  To run custom/limited setup,
  To check the Arabic language support when you install Microsoft Internet Explorer 5+,
  To be ready for over 10 MB download, and
  Do Not put IE5 on Arabic windows 98.

• Sakhr's Sindbad, Accent's Multilingual Mosaic, Alis Tango (latest versions)
  Please see links to these vendors above and make sure you read their system requirements.
• MS Windows 3.1x, Windows NT 3.50:
  If you have Arabized DOS you may be able to use Lynx (Text only browser). With Windows 3.11, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with Arabic support, both Netscape and MS Internet Explorer (English versions) allow you to view Arabic text (layout and format will be lost), earlier versions of Netscape may work better.
• MAC OS:
  If you have Worldscript installed (Arabic fonts included), you may be able to view Arabic text (without the layout, mostly left aligned and some lines mixed up - especially if the line contains a period in the middle). Basically, if you can type in Arabic on your Mac you'll be able to set the font (fixed and proportional) to any Arabic font you have. This works with both Netscape and MS Internet Explorer if the html file is in the ISO (standard Character Set) Arabic. Mac Arabic is close to ISO (also known as ASMO) but not identical. There is no full browser support for Arabic on MAC OS to the best of our knowledge (regardless of coding sets).
  
  • You may want to try CyberDog from Apple (requires system 7.5.3 or later). CyberDog (in version 2) can be downloaded from: http://www.cyberdog.org/ and may exist on Apple OS CD version 8. Our understanding is that CyberDog supports both ISO and CP Arabic but we have not tested that.
  
  
  • On March 29, 2000, we were notified of a product by Digital Ventures called WinArabic Script for displaying Arabic webpages and composing mail on Mac systems. The site address is http://www.moughamarat.com
  Currently, most pages with Arabic text are coded in the CP-1256 character set and thus cannot be viewed on MAC machines without a helper application (and we don't know of any).
  
  We welcome your constructive comments and suggestions on this issue.
• Unix /Linux users:
  PMosaic from Global Publishing or Langabox's AraMosaic (may require root authorization to install). AraMosaic can save html files in either coding set.
  Global Publishing Web Address: http://www.gpg.com
  Langabox Web Address: http://www.langbox.com/
• Browser and Operating System Independent Solutions:
  These solutions either work with the latest versions of Web browsers (4.x) or require special software or server support:
  * PDF files: text edited and saved in .pdf format using Adobe Acrobat requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
  * Dynamic Fonts and StyleSheets: These works with browsers versions 4.x or later only. One example we know of is Nuun (http://www.nuun.net).
  * Java based sites: Some sites allow you to read Arabic by embedding a Java Applet on their server. This will work if the version of the Jave Applet is compatible with the Java interpreter that came with your browser (3.0x or later).
  

In some cases you may need to change font size or configure the browser to recognize a user-defined language (or font). Some require manual code page switching as well. If the creator of the HTML file did not specify a codepage (CP), you may try either: Windows-1256, ISO-8859-6 or 720 (probably in this order) if you have such options (like the language switch button in MSIE 3.0x).