Microsoft announced Office for Mac 2011 at Macworld 2010 earlier this month. Arabic/Hebrew RTL/BiDi language support is still missing. The admins at the Office for Mac Facebook page responded to my question regarding Arabic support. Their response was “ This is the sort of passion we love to see! Arabic Language Pack free download - Vista Transformation Pack, Media Player Codec Pack, Arabic Editor, and many more programs. Microsoft Office 2011. Avast Free Security.
Microsoft Office 2011 Arabic Language Pack Machine
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.
Update on April 28th: I got the chance to try Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 beta 2. I discovered the following: Arabic letters do not render properly in Microsoft Word for Mac 2011 (first picture). However it works find in Microsoft Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel (next 3 screen-shots).
Update: According to Apple-wd Word does support Arabic.
Remember that this is not the final product.
Update: The direction button isn’t for switching to RTL. Arabic letters are disconnected. No Arabic support until now.
Boy Genius Report has posted a hands on with Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, Microsoft’s upcoming Mac version of their office suite. No word about Arabic support in the suite.
However it appears that there is a “Direction” button in Word for Mac 2011.The Direction button is for writing up to down text. We’re hoping that we will see Arabic and Right to Left (RTL/BiDi) support in Office for Mac 2011. Microsoft has avoided supporting RTL languages such as Arabic and Hebrew.
Thanks Yousuf Omar for noticing that button.
Microsoft Office 2011 Arabic Language Pack Mac Download
Arabic version of this post on SaudiMac.net.
Microsoft Office 2011 Arabic Language Pack Macro
Looks like Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 beta 2 has been leaked. We do not recommend installing unofficial software.