How To View Arabic Pages
Please read this guide if you face difficulties
in viewing Arabic Pages on the Internet.

For Webmasters interested in using this page for their Arabic sites: Please read these Remarks

Arabic pages in this site are presented as text, not images as in many Arabic sites on the Internet, In order to view them, you need to browse the pages using the right combination of operating system and browser.

Please read the following options and choose the one you prefer.

If you are using [Arabic and non-Arabic] Windows 3.X, 95 or 98

  • Microsoft [Arabic] Internet Explorer 5.0 is the preferred choice for you if you are looking for a smooth Arabic browsing on different versions of Arabic and non-Arabic windows. Currently our pages are designed to be best viewed using this browser. We recommend that you keep watching Microsoft Internet Explorer homepage to make sure that you have the latest version of this browser. Please read this note to make sure that you install the Arabic support correctly.

  • If for any reason you don't wish to install our recommended browser, Sindibad Arabaization tool form Sakhr can be used along with Netscape Navigator to view our Arabic pages. You can download the latest version of this software form http://www.sakhr.com for free, but please read our special alert before you start.

If you are using MAC OS

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer can be used on Arabic Mac systems to view our pages. visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie and download the latest Mac version of the browser. Please note that this option was not tested on most of the Mac versions.

  • If you have an Arabic MAC, you can read our Arabic pages but not directly. Download an Arabic-text filter, then go to the page you want to read, save it to your local machine, then open the convert utility you've download and locate the page you saved, then convert it to Arabic-Mac format and save it. Now open the saved page, you can now read it. The location of the filter is:  http://www.hf.uib.no/smi/files/Win-MacArabic.sea.hqx. You can also find information on how to Arabaize your Mac at http://www.hf.uib.no/smi/index.html, then look for the word: MACINTOSH.

  • Currently you can read only one of our sites without the need to convert the pages. Click here to go to that site (Al Raya Daily Newspaper), and sorry for the inconvenience!

If you are using UNIX

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 is on option for this platform. Please visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie and download the latest browser available. Please note that we did not have a chance to test this option yet. If you would like to volunteer, please let us hear from you!.

  • Currently, PMOSAIC and AraMosaic 1.1 can render Arabic text on Arabic Unix systems. But note that they can not display frames, execute Java Applets or Scripts, or  support ActiveX controls and components. You can find araMosaic at: http://www.spartacus.com/langbox/

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Why Arabic Text ?

Now you may ask: why do not you just follow the others and display the Arabic pages in your site as an images?.

Fine!, but we do have a very strong reasons behind this...

  • Loading time for the Arabic text is much faster than waiting for the images to be down-loaded

  • Using text, will help you copy and past Arabic web content into your documents.

  • While the Arabic content is entered as a text, you will be able to search Arabic web pages for topics you are looking for.

  • Developing the Arabic pages as images will be reflected on the size of material that we offer. in other words, the more images are used, the less content is available.

  • Finally, this is the natural way of doing things!.

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Special Alert on Sindibad plug-in:

We have found many major problems and shortcomings with Sindibad that make using it not very practical. Therefore, we recommend that users who do not have an Arabic operating system (like Windows 95 Arabic or Windows 98 Arabic) use Microsoft Explorer 5, which successfully supports Arabic text on non-Arabic Windows operating systems and provides an ideal solution for Arabaization world-wide.
To download Microsoft IE5:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie

Steps to Add Arabic Text Display Support for Internet Explorer 5

If you are installing IE5 for the first time:

  • Please Choose the Custom Setup, then follow steps from 7 through 9 below.

If you have IE5 already installed, please follow theses steps:

  1. From the start menu chose settings.

  2. Select the control panel

  3. Select Add/Remove programs

  4. Select Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and Internet Tools

  5. Click add/remove programs.

  6. Check the "add component" radio button, then press OK.

  7. Scroll until you find the "multi language support" option.

  8. Check "Arabic text display support" , then press next

  9. Press finish, then your computer will restart.

Important notes for Netscape users: (Under Arabic Systems)

If you can not read Arabic pages, please follow these instructions:

  1. Make sure that you are running your browser under Arabic Windows, if not, download Sindibad plug-in from Sakhr site.

  2. Run your browser, choose Arabic mode if you are using Sindibad and go to one of our Arabic pages.

  3. From Netscape, Choose Options > General Preferences > Fonts.

  4. Click the "Choose Font" Button to change the default Proportional Font.

  5. A Fonts Dialog box will appear , choose an Arabic font (such as Traditional Arabic or Transparent Arabic) from the list and choose a font size.

  6. Click OK, the Font dialog box will disappear.

  7. Click OK to save the changes .

  8. Now You can read the Arabic pages.

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Remarks for Webmasters interested in using this page for their Arabic sites

  • We are glad that numerous Arabic sites are using this page as a standard reference text for instructions on how to view Arabic pages on the Internet. However, if you are planning to do that, we would require you to place a reference at the top of your page indicating that the page is published courtesy of Horizons, and linking this statement to our website at www.iHorizons.com in the following fashion:

“This page is published courtesy of Horizons”.

This is a copyrighted page and we appreciate that you honor that.

  • As a better alternative, you can LINK to this page from your own page, and use the following icon as an indication of instructions to read Arabic: read-arabic.gif (925 bytes), and link it to the address: www.iHorizons.com/arabic/arabic_guide.htm . This is better because we keep updating this page as technology develops, and you don’t have to go through the hassles of updating your page every time a new software or technique comes out. You just place the icon on your page and we do the rest for you!.

We are trying to set that as a standard for Arabic pages on the Internet and we hope that you help is with the for the benefit of all Arabic Internet users.

Thank you for helping standardize instructions for reading Arabic text on the Internet.

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MS Windows 95 font smoother

To improve the overall quality of fonts displayed on your screen, download and use MS Windows 95 font smoother. This free utility from Microsoft makes your fonts display in a smoother way, but works only if your display is set to 64K colors or more. The link will give you more information and installation details.

Note: this is no longer required for MS Windows 98 or higher.

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