Thank you very much for your anser, Vafa.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2010/2/1 Vafa Khalighi <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:vafa@users.berlios.de">vafa@users.berlios.de</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
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<br></div><div>1) I've seen that I can either use polyglossia or arabxetex (but not both at the same time, as they are not fully compatible, or at least I couldn't use the Arabic environment if I had the package arabxetex declared in my preamble). Anyway, the question is: which one of the two would you recommend and why?</div>
</blockquote></div><div><br>I recommend polyglossia partially because you want to write in utf8 and not in transliteration mode and partially because polyglossia has got more support like it let you have various kinds of arabic dates, typographic convention and etc.<br>
</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Thanks. We'll see. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote">
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<div><br></div><div>2) I've been trying with no success to set the spacing between lines to 2 or 1.5. I've declared package setspace and then used the doublespace or onehalfspace environments, but they only affect the spacing between paragraphs, but not between lines of the same paragraph (in Arabic, of course). What is wrong?</div>
</blockquote></div><div><br>I use \usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace} and I do not have a problem as you described. Could you perhaps please send a minimal example that does not work for you?<br></div></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>I've tried \usepackage[onehalfspacing]{setspace} in the preamble and then I defined the onehalfspacing in the body, but no visible changes. You will find a minimal example attached.</div><div><br>
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<div><br></div><div>3) How can I get the date in Arabic in the title? I mean like ٣٠ كانون الثاني ٢٠١٠ or ٣٠ فبراير ٢٠١٠, which are just January 30, 2010 in Arabic, not the Hijra date according to the lunar calendar... When I used babel long ago I would put arabic as the last item in the list of parameters of the package declaration, but what should I do with arabxetex or polyglossia? I've tried \date{\arab \today} and \date{\begin{Arabic}\today\end{Arabic}}, respectively, but the result is far from good.</div>
</blockquote></div><div><br>I think polyglossia has some options for this but I am not sure. Read the manual of polyglossia and it should contain all the details.<br></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Well, I did, but it's not clear to me. Section 5 talks about language-specific options and commands but I don't know how to use them or where to put them. I've tried all around. It seems what I need is calendar=gregorian but that's the default option already.</div>
<div><br></div><div><div>See the files attached.</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; ">
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<div><br></div><div>4) How can I write section or chapter titles in Arabic? Just \section{\arab قسم} or \section{\begin{Arabic}قسم\end{Arabic}}, respectively won't work.</div></blockquote></div><div><br>No, that is not the right way. When you use polyglossia, if you have<br>
<br>\setmainlanguage{arabic}<br>\setotherlanguage{english}<br>There is no need for this and you can simply have<br><br>\section{قسم}<br></div></div></div></blockquote><div> </div><div>Right, so it seems you can only have that if Arabic is the main or default language. Not very flexible, but it seems logic. ± Solved.</div>
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<div><br></div><div>5) I can have arab and Arabic environments (for full paragraphs) both with arabxetex and polyglossia. However, I can only get a short passage in Arabic using \arab{كلمة} in the former, but not using \Arabic{كلمة آحرِى} in the latter. What would be the right syntax?</div>
</blockquote></div><div><br>See polyglossia manual.<br></div></div></div></blockquote><div> </div><div>Yes, I re-read the relevant section (3 Language-switching commands) and I realized what I was doing wrong. I was trying to use \textarab{} as the instatiation of \text<lang> but the correct command is \textarabic{}. Solved.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Thank you so much!</div><div>Best regards, Manuel</div></div>