[XeTeX] Problems beginning typesetting arabic text

[Zdenek Wagner]

2012/2/25 Tobias Schoel <liesdiedatei at googlemail.com>:
> Hello to all,
>
> finally I have some Arabic text to typeset. Usually I skip the discussion on
> this list, if non-latin scripts are involved, but now I need your help.
>
> The following minimal example:
>
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage{fontspec}
> \setmainfont[Script=Arabic]{Amiri}
> \setromanfont{TeX Gyre Pagella}
> \newfontfamily\arabicfont[Script=Arabic]{Amiri}
> \usepackage{polyglossia}
> \setmainlanguage{arabic}
> \setotherlanguage{english}
>
> \begin{document}
> \begin{Arabic}التصرف عند حدوث حريق و اخلاء المدرسة\end{Arabic}
>
> \begin{english}Hello, World!\end{english}
>
> \end{document}
>
> Why do I have to define \arabicfont by myself? Intuitively, this should be
> done by fontspec if it detects, that the main font Amiri includes the Arabic
> script. Which it does.
>
> If I comment it out, polyglossia complains, that the roman main font (Amiri)
> does not support Arabic. Which it does.
>
> This seems to be a little weird.
>
That's because your main font is TeX Gyre Pagella, \setmainfont and
\setromanfont are synonyms. Thus Amiri is not defined because you have
immediatelly redefined the main font.

> Finally, a little question concerning Arabic typesetting in General:
>
> The above line in Arabic shall be a headline for instructions, so it should
> be heavily emphasised. In Latin script, I would typeset it larger and with a
> bold face. In Arabic, this seems to be wrong as the usual Arabic fonts don't
> include bold faces. So how is heavy and attention drawing emphasis done in
> Arabic script?
>
I have only one printed book in the Arabic script, it is Urdu-Hindi
dictionary and the titles are typeset larger and in boldface.

> Thanks
>
> Toscho
> --
> Tobias Schoel
> Europaschule Kairo
> www.europaschulekairo.com
>
>
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-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz