Anyone Using Winsoft Tasmeem with CC 2018?

[Mo Nasreddin]

Is anyone using Winsoft Tasmeem plugin with InDesign CC 2018? Have you had any issues? Is there something else that does the job better?

[Zaid Al Hilali]

Tasmeem!! interesting, but no I don't have an active license now, last time I had it was with InDesign CS6.

Well, what are you trying to achieve with Tasmeem if I may ask? There is another stand alone application (Windows only) named "Kelk" I tested this application long ago, it is powerful but used to be for phrases only such as banner, greetings card, invitation… etc. If however you need to type long poem, a book, Qur'an book layout then Tasmeem is your companion.

[Mo Nasreddin]

Hello Zaid. I am using Tasmeem for a religious book which contains a mixture of Qur'an, ahadith, and other prose. I have looked at Kelk, which a calligrapher friend uses, but it isn't suitable for a book with hundreds of pages.

There are a number of features that I really like with Tasmeem, but it seems temperamental in how it interacts with InDesign. For instance, it doesn’t seem to like its fonts to have a character style set to them. Also, InDesign has begun crashing more since installing it.

I really need a tool to allow me to use the Arabic script to its full possibilities.

[Zaid Al Hilali · Accepted solution]

If the crashing issue is bothering you, I strongly advice you to contact Winsoft's technical support to assist or at least log the issue for future update. I personally spoke to the support team some seven years ago before they downsize their staff, the support was satisfactory and I hope they still are as good.

Yeah, I agree that Kelk is not meant for long articles such as books but it is powerful non the less.

[Mo Nasreddin]

It took a little over a week, but Winsoft gave me a new install at no extra charge to update to InDesign 13.1. Hopefully they will do this every time it breaks. I'm surprised that no one else has developed a competing plugin that integrates smoother with CC. It would be nice to have Tasmeem features in other Adobe apps.

Thanks, Zaid, for the help and comments.

[Zaid Al Hilali]

With Tasmeem, the power lays in the Deco Type font engine which took seven years of development by Thomas Milo. It isn't easy to compete with that you know.