Writing in Arabic in Office Word 2007

Hello everyone. I write little in Arabic (which I know very little) but I encountered (and solved) the same problem for Hebrew... using my AZERTY keyboard! What follows is only for those who primarily write in French (or English, etc.) and occasionally in Arabic, Hebrew, etc.

The method is pretty much the same regardless of the operating system (Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7). It consists of two operations (the second being a tip I haven't seen explained anywhere).

1. This is very well explained by Argixu above. Under Windows 7, it’s no longer a button, but it doesn’t matter: you need to choose "other commands" and especially reach the "home" tab, the only one that has the commands "text direction right to left" and "text direction left to right" (you need it too, to switch back to French!). Depending on the operating system, the icons will appear in "paragraphs" or in the "quick access" toolbar.

2. Here’s the tip! In the "Insert" menu of Word, choose "symbols". There are the Hebrew, Arabic, and other alphabets. For Hebrew, I assigned mnemonic shortcut keys: "Alt A" for Aleph, "Alt B" for Beth, etc. It’s a bit long but it’s fun... and it prevents you from changing keyboards every time you switch languages!
For Arabic it should be a bit more complicated because the letters change shape depending on whether they are initial, medial, final, or isolated... and Word won't handle that, so you'll need to create more keys, for example by using combinations of Shift, Ctrl, etc. It's worth trying.

Salam, Shalom!

Il faut aller dans le Panneau de configuration, ensuite dans les Options régionales et linguistiques, puis dans Langue... installer le fichier de langue complexe écrite de gauche à droite.

Under Vista, open the Office button at the top left and click on "Word Options" (at the bottom right of the pane that just opened).

Choose "Customize," then "All Commands." Scroll down to "Right-to-Left Text Direction" and "Left-to-Right Text Direction." Add these 2 commands to the toolbar.

Under Windows 7, it’s no longer a button: you need to choose "Other Commands" and make sure to go to the "Home" tab, the only one where the commands "Right-to-Left Text Direction" and "Left-to-Right Text Direction" are located. The icons will appear in the "Quick Access" toolbar.