Arabic font issue - illustrator does not support Arabic font

[Viki Shin]

Hi, 

I faced a problem with Arabic font I uploaded form Google in Illustrator. 

It does not look as it suppose to look like and also it adds some symbols that are not suppose to be there.
When I upload the same font file to other design tool (Pitch) it looks as it shown online of the font specimen page. What could be the problem here?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Do you have the Arabic version of Illustrator installed?

[Viki Shin]

Hi Kevin, 
No. I am not native speaker and use it only for content creation translated by other people. I use english version of illustrator

[Mike_Gondek]

You will need to install the Arabic Version, to get this to work correctly

https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/access-install-hebrew-arabic-indesign-illustrator-CC.html

[qaximarshad]

Hi, I've similar issue, same fonts are working in previous versions (Illustrator 2021) but 2022 can't read 90% of arabic fonts. It Shows the font and preview but when you select a font either its some boxes or just the same characters....

please find the screenshots to understand better.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Are these fonts Type 1 fonts and Adobe fonts and not OpenType?

https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/kb/postscript-type-1-fonts-end-of-support.html

[qaximarshad]

Yes, these are PostScript fonts 😞

Thank you @Kevin Stohlmeyer 

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Two options: you can continue to use your previous version of Illustrator or check to see if there are updated OpenType versions of those fonts.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

AXT (Arabic Xtension) fonts were created for QuarkXpress in the 1980s, they're bad enough to use in a publication as they're not searchable in a PDF. Adobe announced back in 2014 that they will stop supporting these fonts. I know AXT fonts are widely used in the Arab World because these fonts are bastards as no one owns them now.

The best advice is to use Arabic OpenType fonts from a reputable vendor.