need some help with Arabic text copy/paste, convert to unicode?

[Rik]

I am using a Forum script with an Arabic language pack and have to add two
arabic phrases to the Phrase Manager.

The phrases are:

New Thread
New Reply

I don't speak/read Arabic but a friend translated the phrases for me:

???? ?????
???? ????

I copied these from a Word doc and don't know how they will dispay when I
post this.. I do see that it's being displayed in the wrong direction if I
compare it to the Word doc, but I'm not even sure if I'm seeing it right in
the Word doc.. You can see the attachment in this post I wrote on the forum
of the Forum script: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=186111

Anyway, the problem is that when I copy the phrases from the Word doc in the
Phrase Manager then something goes wrong. The first word becomes the second
word and vice versa, and in the second word the first letter has to be at
the end of the word. See attachement, this is how it displays on my site.

I see in the phrase manager that the word Arabic (I think it means Arabic)
is showed as this code: ÇáÚÑÈíÉ

My guess is that I have to input my Arabic phrases in that same code, but I
don't know what that code is (unicode?), or how to convert the Arabic
phrases that my friend wrote into such code.

I've installed Windows right-to-left language support on my pc and I added
Arabic to the language manager, but I think that that would be only useful
when I would type the words letter by letter and not when I copy/paste. But
since I don't have an Arabic keyboard and don't know the Arabic letters all
I can do is copy/paste.

Can someone please help?

Thanks,

Rik.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I am using a Forum script with an Arabic language pack and have to add two
arabic phrases to the Phrase Manager.

The phrases are:

New Thread
New Reply

I don't speak/read Arabic but a friend translated the phrases for me:

???? ?????
???? ????

I copied these from a Word doc and don't know how they will dispay when I
post this.. I do see that it's being displayed in the wrong direction if I
compare it to the Word doc, but I'm not even sure if I'm seeing it right in
the Word doc.. You can see the attachment in this post I wrote on the forum
of the Forum script: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=186111

Anyway, the problem is that when I copy the phrases from the Word doc in the
Phrase Manager then something goes wrong. The first word becomes the second
word and vice versa, and in the second word the first letter has to be at
the end of the word. See attachement, this is how it displays on my site.

I see in the phrase manager that the word Arabic (I think it means Arabic)
is showed as this code: ÇáÚÑÈíÉ

My guess is that I have to input my Arabic phrases in that same code, but I
don't know what that code is (unicode?), or how to convert the Arabic
phrases that my friend wrote into such code.

I've installed Windows right-to-left language support on my pc and I added
Arabic to the language manager, but I think that that would be only useful
when I would type the words letter by letter and not when I copy/paste. But
since I don't have an Arabic keyboard and don't know the Arabic letters all
I can do is copy/paste.

Can someone please help?

Thanks,

Rik.

Copy & paste works very nicely with Arabic text, provided
that the copy-from and the paste-to applications support Arabic
characters. Outlook Express does not, hence your Arabic text
appears as question marks. I copied the words from the site
you quoted and pasted them into Microsoft Word without
any problems.

You can type Arabic text on your normal keyboard by using
the keyboard map shown here:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/keyboards.mspx
Make sure to use IE6 when accessing this site. You will find that
Alif (a vertical bar) is mapped to H, Ba (the bathtub with a dot
below) is mapped to F and Ya (looks like a big S) is mapped to D.

If you're keen to find out the character codes used then have a look
at these lines from a binary lister of my Word document containing
two lines:
111, two Arabic words, 222
333, two more Arabic words, 444

Here is the hex code:
000A00 31 00 31 00 31 00 2C 06 2F 06 4A 06 2F 06 20 00
000A10 39 06 45 06 48 06 36 06 32 00 32 00 32 00 0D 00
000A20 33 00 33 00 33 00 2C 06 2F 06 4A 06 2F 06 20 00
000A30 28 06 2C 06 48 06 27 06 34 00 34 00 34 00 0D 00

And here are the details:
Line A00: 111,ArabicWord,Space
Line A10: ArabicWord,222,NewLine
Line A20: 333,ArabicWord,Space
Line A30: ArabicWord,444,NewLine

 

[Rik]

I am using a Forum script with an Arabic language pack and have to add

Copy & paste works very nicely with Arabic text, provided
that the copy-from and the paste-to applications support Arabic
characters. Outlook Express does not, hence your Arabic text
appears as question marks. I copied the words from the site
you quoted and pasted them into Microsoft Word without
any problems.

You can type Arabic text on your normal keyboard by using
the keyboard map shown here:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/keyboards.mspx
Make sure to use IE6 when accessing this site. You will find that
Alif (a vertical bar) is mapped to H, Ba (the bathtub with a dot
below) is mapped to F and Ya (looks like a big S) is mapped to D.

If you're keen to find out the character codes used then have a look
at these lines from a binary lister of my Word document containing
two lines:
111, two Arabic words, 222
333, two more Arabic words, 444

Here is the hex code:
000A00 31 00 31 00 31 00 2C 06 2F 06 4A 06 2F 06 20 00
000A10 39 06 45 06 48 06 36 06 32 00 32 00 32 00 0D 00
000A20 33 00 33 00 33 00 2C 06 2F 06 4A 06 2F 06 20 00
000A30 28 06 2C 06 48 06 27 06 34 00 34 00 34 00 0D 00

And here are the details:
Line A00: 111,ArabicWord,Space
Line A10: ArabicWord,222,NewLine
Line A20: 333,ArabicWord,Space
Line A30: ArabicWord,444,NewLine

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. Perhaps the problem is the Admin Control Panel of the
Forum script in which I have to copy the Arabic text. Obviously it does
support Arabic characters because after I pasted the Arabic text in the
phrase manager in the admin, the Arabic characters do display on the forum
itself. But for some reason when I paste the text it appears in the wrong
order. Even when I do it word by word it goes wrong. I took a look at the
keyboard map on the link that you gave, but I don't know the Arabic alphabet
so I don't know how to use the map. I still don't know what would be the
best way to get those two phrases displaying the way they should. The only
thing I can think of is to compare each letter with the letters on the map
and find the one that corresponds with it. That should work for just these
two phrases but when I need to enter more text then it would be too
time-consuming. I was hoping that there was some kind of tool available for
this.

 

[Rik]

I am using a Forum script with an Arabic language pack and have to add

Retyping the text is not an option unless you know the Arabic
alphabet, because the same letter appears in different shapes,
depending on its position in a word. The keyboard map shows
only one of four possible shapes!

Your first step should be to determine if Forum Script handles
Arabic text correctly. I suggest you try this:
1. Launch Forum Script.
2. Switch your keyboard into Arabic mode.
3. Press these letters on your keyboard: fdj. It is the word
for "house" and it should look like the attachment to this
reply.
4. Repeat the same exercise in Microsoft Word.

Okay thanks. I did what you said (see attachment, at the top you see the
Arabic in the Forum Script, at the bottom the Arabic in Microsoft Word). I
think it looks like your attachment. It doesn't look 100% the same but
that's probable because the font types aren't the same.

What should I do next?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Okay thanks. I did what you said (see attachment, at the top you see the
Arabic in the Forum Script, at the bottom the Arabic in Microsoft Word). I
think it looks like your attachment. It doesn't look 100% the same but
that's probable because the font types aren't the same.

What should I do next?

The two words are the same. Now seeing that you had a problem
with copying Arabic text, repeat this exercise with a copy/paste
process into Forum Script and into Microsoft Word, making sure
in each case that you have the Arabic keyboard enabled. Start with
only two or three words.

 

[Rik]

I am using a Forum script with an Arabic language pack and have to

add

The two words are the same. Now seeing that you had a problem
with copying Arabic text, repeat this exercise with a copy/paste
process into Forum Script and into Microsoft Word, making sure
in each case that you have the Arabic keyboard enabled. Start with
only two or three words.

Okay, but what words? I don't know any Arabic words, lol. Or do you mean
that I should copy the word (as in my attachement in my previous post) from
Microsoft Word into the Forum Script? I could copy the Arabic words from the
Word document that my friend sent me, but I'm not sure if I am seeing it
correct, if you know what I mean.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Okay, but what words? I don't know any Arabic words, lol. Or do you mean
that I should copy the word (as in my attachement in my previous post) from
Microsoft Word into the Forum Script? I could copy the Arabic words from the
Word document that my friend sent me, but I'm not sure if I am seeing it
correct, if you know what I mean.

We seem to have lost our way. What exactly are you trying to
achieve, and what does not work?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

That was I was trying to figure out, LOL. But you're right, we had lost our
way, or at least I had. Anyway, with Arabic installed I noticed that if I
copied/pasted word by word that I got the same result as in the Word
document that my friend sent me. The only thing is that I am not sure if
what I am seeing in the Word document is what I should be seeing, if you
know what I mean. I made an attachment of the two phrases that I added, and
another line that someone else translated some time ago. It should say
something like: 'Cafe: General Discussions Discuss anything on- or
off-topic in this forum.'

Could you please tell me if it all makes sense?

Thanks.

My knowledge of Arabic is insufficient to say whether the
text is what you think it is. However, if it looks the same as
the source text then it must be right. A visual comparison
will tell you.