note 2: I advice you to always have a native Arabic speaker to check your work to make sure no mistakes were made. English native speakers would also not like to see spelling mistakes in textures
note 3: This tutorial is specifically about Arabic text, however the same tutorial can be followed but then with the Asian specific photoshop settings.
About this tutorial
This tutorial will explain you how can use Arabic text correctly when making new textures for project reality or other work. It is known that quite a few textures in PR and BF2 show the text incorrectly because photoshop in it's standard settings is not correctly setup for this and makes mistakes not visible to the eye of non-arabic speakers but to them this obviously quite annoying to see. This tutorial will explain you how you can:
-type Arabic(hindi) numbering
-copy & paste Arabic text correctly over into photoshop
-how to set up to type Arabic yourself in photoshop
General settings
In order to being able to use the extra tools photoshop has for use Arabic writing and digits some settings have to be enabled.
The first one can be found in edit=>preferences=>Type.There you should enable the Middle Eastern Text engine options.
Now they are usable but not yet visible, to do this go to Type=>Language Options=>Middle Eastern Features. Now these settings will be visible in your character and paragraph settings.
Now your photoshop is set-up to start using these extra features to start using Arabic writings in your work.
Copy & Paste Arabic text correctly
For me, since I'm not a native Arabic speaker I usually find myself the correct translation online. Whether threw online translation(such as Google Translate) or finding the specific term. As example we will import the text Free Syrian Army into photoshop. To do this I opened the wikipedia page about this and usually you will find the direct translation on the first line. Such as here:
Then you simply copy the text so it's ready for pasting. Now we will set photoshop up. There are two things to do:
1. selecting Arabic Font.
Photoshop nativly comes with a couple of arabic specific fonts to use, they can be found at the bottom usually. Select one to your liking. All should be fine.
2. set up to type inverse(right to left).
Photoshop natively writes text from left to right, such as most western languages do. But Arabic is written from right to left, so we need to do this in photoshop too otherwise the text will be inverted. This option can be found in the paragraph window(following you followed the general settings part of this tutorial):
Now you can make a new text, and paste your Arabic writings. When you want to type normal again, simply set the settings back to left=>right and select a normal font to type normal.
Arabic numbers
Although most western Arabic nations still use the international numbering system, the Eastern Arabic nations use the Hindi-Arabic number system:
To use this, make sure you followed each step in the general settings part of this tutorial. For this you don't need to select a specific Arabic font, but it's advisable as it looks better with them. The things you need to do:
1. set up to type inverse(right to left).
--> see previous part of this tutorial(copy&paste)
2. select Hindi numbering system
To this click on the little arrow in the character window, this will give you some options in which you should select Middle Eastern Features => Hindi Digits.
Now when you use your numpad keys you will be able to write Eastern Arabic digits. To go back to normal, simply select left=>right typing and back to Arabic digits.
Type Arabic yourself
In order to write Arabic yourself while your computer normally types non-arabic you will need to change your keyboard settings to Arabic while also following all parts of this tutorial written above. To change keyboard layout read more here:
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/258824
Remember that you will have to restart Photoshop for this.
I hope this was helpful, feel free to ask a question if needed.
