Inquiry

[tokyoi at mac.com]

On 5 Jan 2007, at 17:07, ahmed mostafa wrote:

> Hello,
> I am a new user to fedora core 6 "Zod", and I enabled Arabic  
> language support while installation, but when I opened  
> OpenOffice.org to enter arabic text I didn't know how to enter it  
> (I tried pressing right ALT+SHIFT but nothing happened), I could  
> only enter English text. Kindly advise me how to enter Arabic text  
> in OpenOffice.org.

Welcome to the growing throng, Ahmed. I can't help you specifically  
on Arabic but I do use the CJK (Chinese--Japanese--Korean) part of  
the input system. Basically if you have installed the Arabic option  
during the installation, Arabic input will be available via the SCIM  
facility. CJK input on my system is accessed by pressing Ctrl-Space,  
Arabic may have a different default combination to toggle between  
Latin and Arabic input. Go to the K-Menu (under KDE -- don't know the  
Gnome equivalent off-hand) and then to Settings=>Input Method. Make  
sure the SCIM is set as the default (system-wide) and then look under  
the Help system (search for "SCIM") and that should give you links to  
manual pages for all the languages installed on your system. Whether  
you are in OpenOffice or even a notepad application, you can input  
Arabic via SCIM.

As I say, I'm not sure if this applies to Arabic, though a quick  
Google search for

   SCIM Linux Arabic

suggests to me that it would.

Linux has what they politely term a "steep learning curve" but it's  
well worth it!

Best wishes,

Ian

PS When posting messages to the list it helps everybody if you are  
more specific with the subject you give your message: "Inquiry about  
input methods for Arabic" would, for example, probably have drawn  
more responses from around the globe!