Arabic Text

Viewing Guidelines for Arabic text:

æBo×\á¾ æCÇ×ÃtW ÈëÃs Ñ kéÇádâÆ ãÁD Ôî Ñ èkéÇádâÆ Ôî ëÄá{ ÈÏÃÂB

General

• A special font called Karbala is required to view the Arabic text
• No need to download and install the font file if you are using MS-IE4 or Netscape 4.01 browsers or higher. We support font embedding, the necessary font is downloaded automatically when needed. You can still download and install the font if you wish to view the pages locally while disconnected from the Internet.
• It is available free for Windows 3.1/95/NT,  Macintosh or Unix platforms.
• Windows 3.1/95/NT users: If you are using Netscape to download this file, please download the zip version, and use WinZip or another zip utility program to unzip the file.
• This font has been developed from scratch by the Ahlul Bayt DILP to assist in our aim of presenting quality Islamic resources on the Internet.  All rights to it are reserved. However, it can be used freely for personal work or on non-commercial websites. If you do decide to use this font on a website, please acknowledge its source and provide a link to the Al-Islam site.  Always obtain the font from the Al-Islam site to ensure you obtain the latest version and learn about other interesting developments.
• Download and save the font (right click on one of the links above and choose 'Save target as ...' or a similar option)

Installation

• Again, no font installation or configuration is required, since our pages support embedded Karbala font  if using MS-IE4 or above or Netscape 4.01 and above. However, make sure that this setting is correct for Netscape:

      Edit | Preferences | Appearance | Fonts

  Must be set to "Use document-specified fonts, including Dynamic Fonts."

• Save the font into your \Windows\Fonts directory (Win95) or \Windows\System (Win3.1x).
• Install the font once from Start | Settings | Control Panel | Fonts; select: File | Install New Font from the menu.
• You may have to restart your browser and/or your Windows session for the font to take effect, however this is a one-time procedure and will not be necessary each time you wish to view these pages.

Font Smoothing

• It is recommended that you enable font smoothing, if you use 16-bit colors or higher. This improves the looks of both Arabic and English fonts. Under Windows 95, if you use the PLUS! pack, simply check the Smooth edges of screen fonts option in the Display Properties - Plus! property sheet. If Plus! is not installed in your system, you may download a free utility (W95Gray.exe) that does the same thing from the Microsoft site.
• You can read more about it in Microsoft's Font Smoothing document.

Printing

• If Arabic text does not appear when you print the document, then select the "Print TrueType as graphics" setting, by right clicking on your Printer name in Start | Settings | Control Panel | Printers (Fonts Tab).

• Again, no font installation or configuration is required, since our pages support embedded Karbala font  if using MS-IE4 or above or Netscape 4.01 and above. However, make sure that this setting is correct for Netscape:
  

      Edit | Preferences | Appearance | Fonts

  Must be set to "Use document-specified fonts, including Dynamic Fonts."

• For the Macintosh drag the font file into the System->Fonts window and restart the browser. In Netscape, from the Options | Document Encoding menu, select "User-Defined". Keep the font mapping associated with the User-Defined encoding to a standard Latin font.

Netscape Configuration

If using Netscape version 4.01 or above, font installation is not required. Embedded dynamic fonts are utilized throughout the site. However, make sure that this setting is correct:

    Edit | Preferences | Appearance | Fonts

Must be set to "Use document-specified fonts, including Dynamic Fonts."

If using an older version of Netscape then install the Unix font and continue with the following configuration.

In Netscape do the following steps:

Choose Options | Document Encoding | User Defined

Choose Options | General Preferences or Edit | Preferences in new versions:

Select Fonts menu

Set For the Encoding to User Defined

Set Use the Proportional Font to Karbala (DILP, Unicode 2.0)

Press OK

Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE4) Configuration

Embedded fonts do not seem to function properly under MS-IE4 for Unix at this time. Therefore, you must follow the font installation directions, as below, until this feature is fixed in Explorer.

Installation

Create a directory, say
mkdir ~/dilpfonts

Unzip then copy the karbala.bdf into that directory:
cp karbala.bdf ~/dilpfonts

Go into that directory and do the following:
cd ~/dilpfonts
mkfontdir
xset +fp ~/dilpfonts
xset fp rehash

You can verify that the new font is in the path by doing:

xset q

To check if the font works try out Refresh/Reload this page. You should be able to read the Arabic within the box at the top of the page.

• This page may be viewed using either MS-Internet Explorer, Netscape or derivatives. After doing Refresh/Reload of the page you should be able to view the Arabic text properly.

An effort of the Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project (DILP) team