Arabic language support

[Obad]

On a Mac

Have created a form containing fields where the font is "Adobe Arabic" and alignment is right to left. Filling the form is fine and does not suggest any problems (i.e. Arabic shows correctly) but if I try to print, any field using the Adobe Arabic Font prints letters on top of each other (i.e. the field does not show).

[Eric Dumas]

Hi,

Can you share a screenshot of the form filled and confirm the version of your software and operating system?

Can you open the form in MS Word and print it from there? to test 

[Obad]

Using Microsoft's import utility into MS Word, yes, I was able to print the form correctly but printing from Adobe Acrobat DC is not able to print the Arabic fields correctly.
I can take a screenshot but it's not going to provide any information. But I'm attaching scans of both the printed documents (|sorry for duplex scan) page 1 & 2 are the Adobe print, 3 & 4 are the MS Word print.

Please note I'm running this on an Apple MacBook Pro (with MS Office 365 installed). 

Adobe version

[Eric Dumas]

Can you check the font type used?

In Acrobat: File > Properties 

There is a tab for fonts,

You might need to find a more up to date version of the font (.otf istead of .ttf or type1)

Next I would test to print on a different printer to see if it is where the issue is. A laser printer might need some update. If you used a laser printer before, can you try on a simple inkjet?

This is to locate where the issue might be.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Marhaba Abdul Rahman,

I worked on Arabic forms before and used Adobe Arabic font, but I mostly use GE Fonts such as GE Dina, I never had this issue, so I will try to replicate the issue on my Mac as much as I can.

Did you try to print on another printer, A Postscript perhaps?

As far as the scanned pages you shared here, I couldn't see the problem, which filed(s) shows the overlapped text?

[Zaid Al Hilali · Accepted solution]

Set the font as Arial, see Arial has all Arabic characters and numerals and it is common on all platforms even mobile devices.

[Obad]

Thanks, that worked immediately. Adobe Arabic was the first font that said Arabic so I thought it appropriate.

A side question, is there any way to flip language depending on field? Numeric fields in Arial won't take Arabic input. This is neither a feature request nor an issue, just asking if someone was able to do it.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

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@Obad wrote:

Thanks, that worked immediately. Adobe Arabic was the first font that said Arabic so I thought it appropriate.

---

Adobe Arabic became a standard Adobe font for Arabic language users, I'm going to spend some time testing it on several printers and report back my findings to Adobe.

As far as numerals are concerned, you may switch your Mac OS keyboard input between Arabic and English to type the Arabic numbers 123 or Hindi numbers ١٢٣.

If switching keyboard input isn't what you're asking for, you may want to force your Acrobat to type one set of numbers or another by going to this menu on Mac… Acrobat > Preferences, choose Language from the left pane to uncheck the Hindi Digits in the main window.

Note. changes made in the Preferences will affect your computer only, it will not affect your form behaviour elsewhere in case you decided to distribute it.

[Obad]

For fields defined as numeric with a single digit each (like when a form
has boxed fields - not sure I can make that more clear) the hindi numeral
is not accepted. Also when I input a date it will not be accepted in hindi
numerals.. I had already removed in preferences the use of hindi numerals.
Please understand, the hindi numerals are not my concern, but I was
reporting it as part of the conversation.
So:
1- If I need to fill in an account number where boxes exist for the digits,
and I setup the group of digits as acctnum0-acctnum9 (by copying multiple)
after defining acctnum as 1 digit number with zero decimals these fields
will NOT accept hindi digits.
2- I had date fields defined as yyyy/mm/dd and they will only accept arabic
numerals (not hindi)

I will consider my request for support complete (using a different font)
since I prefer arabic numerals (exclusively) and suspect no one can refuse
them -- the only inconvenience is one has to remember to switch to English
(in my case) otherwise a beep reminds you that hindi is unacceptable.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

The comb feature is what you need to have to insert a bank account number, using this feature, you can copy numbers from elsewhere and paste in one step into the divided field as shown…

As for the date field, well you're right, if you set the field as "Date" it will always display the date in Arabic umbers 123 not as Hindi ١٢٣, unless you keep this field as a text field where the user type manually ٢٠٢١/٤/٨

[Obad]

For good order's sake: I managed to print it correctly when converted using
Microsoft's converter - so the form works fine. In Adobe, Font used was
Adobe Arabic Bold and got overprinting (in the middle of the field) of all
letters (I have to assume). I cannot figure out what microsoft converted
the font to because I didn't save the file.