If you just need to do minor edits or write the occasional email, you can use the text-input function at or the QWERTY keyboard layout which is fairly intuitive.Īnother option for inputting text is the on-screen keyboard to click letters with your mouse just select the “Open Keyboard Preferences” option in the image above and hunt and peck away. If you are going to be doing extensive Arabic word processing and your computer doesn’t have an Arabic-style keyboard, you will want to consider buying some Mac Arabic keyboard stickers, so you can see which key goes with which letter and type quickly. Use this menu to toggle between input languages when you’re inside an application. Click that icon and you will see a drop down menu for you to select Arabic (or whatever other input languages you need). When you go to the upper right corner of your screen you should see a little flag icon (in my case U.S. Under”Keyboard Preferences” you will be able to select from a variety of keyboard layouts (including a helpful QWERTY version if you are unfamiliar with typing on a standard Arabic layout). Select whether you want to have Arabic be the primary language (which will Arabize your full operating system) or as a secondary language for use in certain applications. To do this, click the Apple logo at the top left of your screen and select “System Preferences.” Click “Language & Region,” then click the plus arrow and select Arabic. Step one is to turn on Arabic language support within Apple’s OS X operating system. So we’ve put together this quick guide for getting the most out of your Mac within an Arabic environment.Įnabling Arabic Language Support on the Mac Using Arabic on Mac is more difficult than on a Windows PC but it’s not impossible. If you’re like me, you can join this Facebook group calling on Microsoft to offer Arabic support in future versions of Office for Mac. The problem is that Microsoft Office for Mac is not built to work with right-to-left languages like Arabic, Farsi, and so on.Īnd since most workplaces use Office as the standard software package, it is difficult (but not totally impossible) to use Office for Mac as an Arabic language word processor.įirst off, let’s stop for a minute and reflect on how outrageous it is that Microsoft has not included this critical function in Office for Mac, the standard “work” software used around the world. The issue is not that Apple doesn’t support Arabic language (it does).

And while I love my new Macbook Air, there are some pretty significant barriers to working with Arabic text on a Mac. More and more of our clients are now using Apple computers.

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