SaudiMac Saudi Apple Macintosh Users
Microsoft has released service pack 2 for it’s Mac Office suite unfortunately Arabic support is no where to be found. The update includes many fixes and you should run the Microsoft Office update to install it. Read more about the update here.
Despite Microsoft’s “advancements” in supporting Arabic on Windows/Office for Windows as they claim on their site. Office 2008 for Mac have no support for many Unicode and RTL (right to left) languages such as Arabic.
Microsoft Office developers’ response to Arabic/RTL support is “BiDi languages and Unicode support has not change since 2004”. In other words “if you want Arabic go buy Windows”. Microsoft continues it’s idiotic ways.
To get the word out to Microsoft send an email to arasat@microsoft.com listed here for “enquiries regarding Arabic language” and fill this suggestion form on Microsoft Mac BU site and demand they add Arabic support!
Via The Mac Observer. heardworld for the MS statement about Unicode.
Nooo !!
Im downloading it now.. Big disappointment !!
Don’t be hasty to get the update if you don’t own a genuine copy of MS Office 2008. The service pack will immediately ask you to enter a new key once it finishes the installation process.
Keep using open office…
you shall ask Apple to make good support for Iwork arabic
It’ s a shame! I’m working on a very nice arabic language learning material and am dependend to work cross-platform in order to share corrections with the author. I had no problems in doing this for chinese, russian, greek or turkish language so far. And now this! It’s very disappointing.