How do I set default Arabic font?

[ngazidja]

I'm writing a text in English, using Baskerville as my font, but have frequent words in Arabic. I write them just by switching language in the menu with the little flags (excuse the technical language here) - from Australian (yes, it's a language) to Arabic and back again.

Now, I've noticed that the Arabic text is automatically in Geeza Pro (with Baskerville in red in the font menu), which is a little ugly. Can I set preferences somewhere to have all my Arabic text in, say, Al Bayan? Or do I have to go through and manually change all the Arabic words to Al Bayan? I can't see anything obvious in the prefences.

(Oh, and will this be retroactive, ie, if I make whatever change is required, will all my Arabic text automatically switch font? I've already written a fair bit...)

Thanks.

Iain.

[martin]

This really breaks down into two tasks:

1. Change all already existing Arabic text in a document to use the Al-Bayan font.
a. First you'll want to select all the Arabic text in your document.
i. Open the Find and Replace window and clear the "find what" field.
ii. Click the little "gear" icon next to the "find what" field and choose the menu Scripts > AnyArabic.
iii. Click the "Find All" button.
b. With all Arabic text selected, apply the font you desire.
i. Use the menu Format > Font > Al Bayan.

That should cover text you've already typed. The next thing is to setup NWP so that all new Arabic text you type is in Al Bayan.

2. Configure NWP to automatically switch the font when you type in Arabic.
a. Open your NWP preferences.
b. Switch to the "Languages" preference pane.
c. From the list on the left, choose "Arabic".
d. From the settings on the right, set the "secondary font" to Al Bayan.
e. From the settings on the right, set "switch font" to "switch to secondary font".
f. You will also want to change the "keyboard" setting to switch to your preferred Arabic keyboard layout.

Now, this last part is important: whenever you want to type in Arabic, be sure to use one of NWP's language menus instead of OSX's keyboard "flag" menu. The flag menu you want to avoid is the one in the main menu bar, on the very top-right corner of your screen. That's the OSX menu, and only controls the keyboard layout. When you use that menu you only change the keyboard layout and nothing else (eg: the font will not change). Instead, use NWP's Format > Language menu, or the Language palette or toolbar item, or the flag icon in the bottom-right of every document window. Using any of those will change not only the language, but also the font and keyboard layout.

I hope that's clear! Please let me know if you have any questions.

[ngazidja]

Perfectly clear and worked perfectly. Thank you very much.

[ngazidja]

Actually...

I have a problem switching back. When I switch to typing Arabic I use the little flag (bottom right) in NWP, but at the same time as I do this the OSX flag menu changes too. That's ok as far as I'm concerned. So I type away in Al Bayan, but when I want to switch back it doesn't go quite as smoothly. I change the NWP flag back to Australian, but the OSX flag doesn't change with it - which is strange - why would it be ok changing to Arabic but not back?

Anyway, when I change back and change the OSX flag manually, OSX goes back to Australian, but when I type I get some sort of Roman script sans serif font (not my regular Baskerville) and the font menu still says Al Bayan (highlighted in red).

What's curious is that the OSX flag only changes when I change to Arabic - I tried French, Hebrew, Japanese and, yes, even American, but in all these cases the OSX flag doesn't change, it only changes when I change NWP to Arabic.

Sigh.

[Kino]

I change the NWP flag back to Australian, but the OSX flag doesn't change with it - which is strange - why would it be ok changing to Arabic but not back?

For Arabic, you have set not only Secondary Font to Al Bayan but also Switch Keyboard to Switch to chosen keyboard or Switch to last used keyboard in NWP’s Preferences - Languages, I guess. Do the same for Australian. For example, set Secondary Font to Times or Switch to last used font and Switch Keyboard to Switch to chosen keyboard, e.g. Australian.

Generally speaking you’d better use Switch to chosen keyboard. It is difficult for me to imagine a situation in which Switch to last used keyboard is preferable . . . unless you use two or more keyboard layouts for a single language, e.g. you type not only French text but also enter IPA symbols for French words using a special keyboard layout. But, in such a situation, I think it would be better to define a custom language for phonetic symbols because French spelling dictionary does not work for them.

Note that, while NWP’s Flag menu is Language menu, that of OS X is Keyboard Layout (or Input Method) menu. They are different. A single keyboard layout may be used for multiple languages. IIRC Roman keyboard layouts such as U.S. cover eleven Western European languages and, in early days of OS X, some people were using a Japanese input method supporting any Unicode code point to enter Chinese text until Chinese language was officially supported (input methods and fonts) as a minor version up to OS X 10.1.

[ngazidja]

Thank you, that's worked.