From FISHBEIN@HUMnet.UCLA.EDU Wed Oct 29 09:21:03 1997
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 10:06:56 PST
From: Michael Fishbein 
To: heer@u.washington.edu
Subject: Arabic Files on Mac

Dear Professor Heer,

First, let me thank you for making your Arabic files available over the 
internet.

You might wish to mention that the files can also be used on the Mac 
with Nisus Writer.

Proceed as follows: View the files in ISO 8859-6 format from within 
Netscape. Save the file--it will appear as gibberish--"as source." Open 
the resultant file from within Nisus, select the entire text (Command-
A), and, with the shift-key depressed (very important), change the font 
to one of the Arabic fonts (e.g. Geeza). Replace the square character 
with a hard return. Select the entire text and change its direction to 
right-to-left (click on the arrow on the ruler), and you should have 
usable Arabic text. There will be a certain amount of html coding to 
remove manually and replace with the corresponding formatting in Nisus. 
If one is ambitious, one could write a macro to automate most of the 
process.

Would you like to add a link to the homepage of UCLA's Department of 
Near Eastern Languages & Cultures?

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/nelc/nelc.html

Do you mind if I put a link to your page on it?

Sincerely yours,
Michael Fishbein

********************
Michael Fishbein
Dept. of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1511

(310) 206-2229 (office, 389A Kinsey Hall))
(310) 206-6456 (fax)
fishbein@humnet.ucla.edu
********************

From FISHBEIN@HUMnet.UCLA.EDU Wed Oct 29 09:20:00 1997
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 15:56:37 PST
From: Michael Fishbein 
To: heer@u.washington.edu
Subject: Reading Files on Mac

Dear Nicholas,

It turns out that there is an easy way to read an ISO 8859-6 file on the 
MAC, using Netscape, if the Apple Arabic Language kit has been 
installed.

In Netscape, before or after going to the text in ISO 8859-6 format, 
under the OPTIONS menu open GENERAL PREFERENCES. Click the tab marked 
FONTS, and select an Arabic font (such as Geeza) as a proportional font. 
(Because the Mac Arabic fonts also contain Latin characters, this change 
will not render English text illegible; however, it will appear less 
elegant than in the default font, Times, and you may want to change back 
to Times afterward for general browsing.) Next, under the OPTIONS menu, 
set DOCUMENT ENCODING to Western (MacRoman). Any ISO 8859-6 encoded 
document will now appear as Arabic text within Netscape. The document 
can also be printed in Arabic from within Netscape.

This information is from George Maschke, a graduate student in Persian 
in the Department. I have tried it, and it works quite well.

My procedure for downloading the file and converting it to Nisus Writer 
will still be useful whenever one wants to quote from, reformat, or 
otherwise manipulate the text.

Sincerely yours,
Michael Fishbein
********************
Michael Fishbein
Dept. of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1511

(310) 206-2229 (office, 389A Kinsey Hall))
(310) 206-6456 (fax)
fishbein@humnet.ucla.edu
********************