Below you will find instructions to permit any user to include a wide range of unicode diacritic characters required when transliterating Arabic.

This is now the preferred and recommended option for students at the Institute of Islamic Studies when writing papers, proposals and other academic work. Students may of course continue to use the New Times Arabic font, but will find that the use of Unicode characters produces superior diacritic characters. In addition Unicode characters are rapidly becoming the standard for scholars and for the electronic transmission of papers. For more information about unicode fonts please consult Alanwood Web Site

The following options are provided:

• Unicode fonts, MS Word template and instructions to type diacritic characters
• Diacritic Toolbar for MS Word for easy insertion of diacritics
• Information for typing Arabic text

Unicode diacritic fonts

Students can chose between two different fonts. The FreeSerif font will print exactly as the New Times Roman font. The Gentium font is used by the Encyclopedia of Islam. Both fonts may appear slightly "faded" on a computer screen, but this in no way effects the quality of printing. To reduce this "fading" effect one need only increase the percentage of zoom in Word (Click VIEW then Select ZOOM). If using the Free Serif font, you will need to set paragraph spacing to 0.7 for single spaced lines and 1.4 for double spaced lines.

The following instructions apply to PC's using MS Word.

Quick Instructions for use:

1. Download and install the required fonts

1) In order to install the font, first download and install the following fonts. Right click on the Diacritic Fonts [.zip] and select 'save as' and then install on your computer by extracting all the fonts listed to a suitable folder (i.e. desktop). Or alternately one can obtain these fonts from Free Serif Font and Gentium Font

2) Follow these steps to manually install the font:

1. Click START button
2. Select SETTINGS then CONTROL PANEL
3. In CONTROL PANEL select FONTS
4. Under FILE select INSTALL NEW FONTS
5. Open the location for the New Fonts (List of Fonts will read the following Free Serif, Free Serif Italic, Free Serif Bold, Free Serif Bold Italic; Gentium, Gentium Italic, GentiumAlt, GentiumAlt Italic)
6. Under LIST OF FONTS, Highlight these Fonts then click OK, then close.

2. Download and install the diacritic MS Word template.

This template has been designed to include all the keystrokes to transliterate Arabic. It will work with either Free Serif or Gentium fonts and any other unicode font that contains the desired characters. Thus all one need do is download the template and double click. This will open MS Word. To use the diacritic characters, select the desired font (Free Serif or Gentium). If one wants to set a particular font as default, simply click FORMAT then select FONT (i.e. Gentium or Free Serif) and click where it says default. This will set the diacritic template with the Gentium or Free Serif font as default.

To download the template, right click and save as (chose desktop as location and the file is named diacritic.dot) Diacritic Word Template [.zip]

3. Instructions to use these fonts:

1. Extract diacritic.dot from the zip-file into a suitable folder or place on desktop.
2. Double click diacritic.dot.
3. Once Word opens, select the appropriate font, use the following chart to type various diacritic characters.

Detailed Instructions:

These instructions are for those who wish to do the following:

1. Modify short cut keystrokes or to create their own short cuts for characters not included in the diacritic.dot template.
2. Add the diacritic template (diacritic.dot) to the template list in Word.
3. Make the diacritic template (diacritic.dot) the default template for Word.

Creating custom short cut keystrokes

After downloading and installing the fonts, open Word, select either the FreeSerif or Gentium font, and then go to Insert - Symbol. Follow the screen shot below to learn how to create short cut keystrokes which will allow the rapid insertion of special characters.

1. Click INSERT located on the Word toolbar
2. Select Symbol
3. Find the desired character (Click on the picture for a larger image)
   
   
   
4. Click Shortcut Key
5. Enter desire combination of keystrokes. For example alt+g
6. Click Assign. Then close if finished.
   
   
   

Adding the diacritic template to the template list in Word

This allows Word to be opened and then one can select any template listed such as the diacritic template.

1. For Windows 98, Copy 'diacritic.dot' into C:/Windows/Application Data/Microsoft/Templates
   For Windows XP and Vista, Copy 'diacritic.dot' into C:/All Users/Application Data/Microsoft/Templates
   (Note: If you have a separate login user name, then replace "All Users" with that login name)
2. Open Word
3. On the Tools menu, click Templates and Add-Ins.
4. Click Add, switch to the template 'diacritic,' and then click OK.
5. Select an appropriate font for the diacritic characters

Making the diacritic template the default template

The default template for Word documents is 'normal.dot'. To set the diacritic.dot as the default follow these steps

1. For Windows 98, Copy 'diacritic.dot' into C:/Windows/Application Data/Microsoft/Templates
   For Windows XP and Vista, Copy 'diacritic.dot' into C:/All Users/Application Data/Microsoft/Templates
   (Note: If you have a separate login user name, then replace "All Users" with that login name)
2. Rename 'normal.dot' to 'normal_old.dot'
3. Rename 'diacrtic.dot' to 'normal.dot'
4. Open Word and the default font will appear as FreeSerif or Gentium depending upon which font has been set as default.

Use and installation of a diacritic toolbar for MS Word

The 'uniqoder' toolbar is free and easy to install. It is available for both PCs and Macs. It allows a wide selection of preset diacritics with the click of the mouse. Please be advised this toolbar does contain macros. The toolbar can be used with the diacritic.dot to provide easy access to various diacritics. To download click the following and follow the instructions found at the website Uniqoder

To install this toolbar, the file 'uniqoder.dot' must be copied to C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office'x'/startup where 'x' can be 10 or 11 or another number depending on how it is displayed.

Typing Arabic Text

Traditional Arabic and keyboard layout is provided by Microsoft and is easily to install and use.

For Windows 2000 and XP, in order to make your PC Arabic compatible, you need to go to the Control Panel and click on Regional and Language Options. Then go into 'Languages' where the option exists to install files for right to left languages. Keyboard support is also available in this location.

To obtain a keyboard layout, go to Arabic keyboard layout. You can copy this image and either print out or paste into a document for easy reference.

For Windows 98 and 98SE, you need to go to Windows update and download the Arabic language set. Once done, go to Control Panel then select 'keyboard' then select 'language'. Click 'Add' and chose an Arabic keyboard. For a keyboard layout see above.