Arabic goes all wonky on export to PDF

[BlazeMiskulin]

I've dug through the forums, but didn't find anything about this.  I'm hoping it's just a setting I'm missing.

Using Scribus 1.4.4 on Fedora Linux 21 (Linux upgrade is not an option because of technical issues).

I've attached two images to show what's happening.   In Scribus, the Arabic works fine.  When I export to PDF, the Arabic gets scattered all over the place.  The font is Arial Unicode MS.  I've used it with Simplified Chinese and not had any issues.   Does anyone have an idea what's causing this?   Is there a simple fix? 

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Nermander]

As far as I know the complex script support in Scribus is not yet finished.

https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=3965

[a.l.e]

as nermander says, scribus does not support arabic scripts (yet!)

but a brave group of programmers from oman are working very hard on making it possible!

if everything works well, the first bits will get into 1.5.x (the development version that will lead to the future stable 1.6) in the next couple of weeks.

[Kunda]

related forum threads that your digging didn't turn up:
http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,1215.msg8100.html
http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,1589.msg7645.html

[BlazeMiskulin]

related forum threads that your digging didn't turn up:
http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,1215.msg8100.html
http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,1589.msg7645.html

I misunderstood those posts.  I thought they were saying that the languages didn't work in the layout phase.  Everything looks fine (to me) in the layout phase.  It's only the conversion to PDF that's an issue.

[BlazeMiskulin]

as nermander says, scribus does not support arabic scripts (yet!)

but a brave group of programmers from oman are working very hard on making it possible!

if everything works well, the first bits will get into 1.5.x (the development version that will lead to the future stable 1.6) in the next couple of weeks.

Okay.  Thanks.

The Arabic looks good in the layout, so I thought the issue was already fixed and I just didn't know how to tweak the settings properly. 

I'll wait for 1.5.x to see how things go.

Thanks.

[BlazeMiskulin]

Update:

The problem, it seems, was with Arial Unicode MS.   I searched for some Arabic-specific fonts and tried them.  The kerning isn't perfect, but they display correctly in both layout form, and in the PDF.  The font I'm using is Lateef if anyone cares.

[a.l.e]

you can type very simple arabic words in scribus, of course!
but you cannot expect scribus to correctly compose your words... YET...

anyway, support for arabic (and indic+, hebrew, ...) is currently been integrated into 1.5!
so, we can now say with some confidence: the next scribus (1.6) *will* very likely support arabic text!

and that's good news!

[Kunda]

@BlazeMiskulin
Feel free to participate in the feedback process for Arabic script RTL implementation in Scribus.

It's happening at https://github.com/HOST-Oman/scribus/issues

If you want to submit an SLA for them to check that would be great. Even better if you could compile their trunk version and help them test documents against it.

[BlazeMiskulin]

@BlazeMiskulin
Feel free to participate in the feedback process for Arabic script RTL implementation in Scribus.

It's happening at https://github.com/HOST-Oman/scribus/issues

If you want to submit an SLA for them to check that would be great. Even better if you could compile their trunk version and help them test documents against it.

Unfortunately, I really don't have the skill set to help out in any meaningful way.  I don't speak (or read) Arabic, I'm simply putting professional translations into the appropriate text boxes and doing a quick visual against the original Arabic document to see if it looks the same.      I wouldn't be able to tell if anything was wrong unless it was blatantly obvious (as in the example in the OP).

I could, I suppose, submit the couple SLAs I have so they can check them.  I'll look into it.

[a.l.e]

hey blaze

then please be very careful when putting arabic text into scribus 1.4!
as said, scribus 1.4 does not support any language that needs a complex text layout (CTL).

without being able to read what you put in there, you might be overseeing tiny errors that make the text unreadable...

... this comes from somebody who grew up in a language only spoken by a small minority in his county... and is used to see texts that are barely readable... and most of the time just funny...

good luck!
a.l.e

[BlazeMiskulin]

a.l.e.

Yeah.   I'm aware of that.  Very aware.  Fortunately, our workflow has a native Arabic speaker between me and the customers.

It goes...

Me (writing) --> Translator --> Me (layout) --> Agent --> Customers.

Copies of the final PDFs also go back to the translator.  So I have two sets of native-speaking eyes looking at it before it goes to the clients.   It's the only way I feel comfortable doing this.   I've dealt with these situations enough between English and Mandarin that it's high on my "things to be afraid of" checklist.      Especially since our Arabic translator is outsourced.  Our Spanish, German, and Chinese (of course) translators are in-house, so it's easy to have them check it during the process.  Arabic, however, scares the bejeezus out of me.

Just out of curiosity:  What's your mother tongue? 

and... do you hire out for translations?    (only half joking... we're looking to get into some rather obscure markets, and would love to be able to present basic documents in as many native languages as feasible)

[a.l.e]

hey

if you're into arabic scripts, please have a look at HOST's effort that is currently bringing real support for arabic in 1.5.x

it's still experimental, but very promising!

https://github.com/HOST-Oman/scribus/tree/ctl

it's likely that it will be integrated into scribus 1.5.x soon

and my mother language is italian... which is not really a small language: but i grew up in the south part of switzerland... which is close to italy but is a different country.
of course, switzerland being a small country, it has french as a minority language, italian as a third official language spoken in only one canton (but that canton only speaks italian...) and a fourth tiny language that survived somewhere in the higher mountains.
don't get me into epxlaining what schwiizerdütsch is :-)