[XeTeX] Typesetting Arabic in XeLaTeX

[Vafa Khalighi]

>
> 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?
>

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.


>
> 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?
>

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?


>
> 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.
>

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.


>
> 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.
>

No, that is not the right way. When you use polyglossia, if you have

\setmainlanguage{arabic}
\setotherlanguage{english}
There is no need for this and you can simply have

\section{قسم}


>
> 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?
>

See polyglossia manual.



-- 
Best wishes,
Vafa Khalighi
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