FrKeys XP
This is the FrKeys documentation.
As with all languages, most of the Arabic letters are placed on the key whose English letter corresponds most closely. Where there are two letters that are similar to one English letter, one of them will be obtained by pressing Shift. As well as the Arabic letters, some letters from other languages (such as Persian) are available on the keyboard, for use in loan words.
Each Arabic letter can have several forms, depending on its position within the word. Fortunately Windows knows about this, and automatically chooses the correct form of each letter as you type it, in almost all cases.
For the few cases where Windows does not choose correctly, the FrKeys window has buttons marked JOIN and NO JOIN. These type characters that are invisible, but cause the surrounding characters to be drawn in their ‘joined’ or ‘unjoined’ forms when they would otherwise be unjoined or joined respectively.
Vowel marks—which are not always used in written Arabic—may be obtained by pressing the Control key with a vowel, after the letter to which the vowel mark is attached. Press Shift+Control for tanweens. (For those vowels whose keys are not assigned to any other letters, you can also type the vowel mark without pressing Control).
Press ‘-’ for a join-extender (tatweel/kashida). This can be used to ‘stretch out’ a word, for use in a title or to make it clearer to a learner which letters are present.
See the section about Microsoft Word for information about typing in Arabic in Microsoft Word.
| Word | Keys |
|---|---|
 (Muslim) | M, S, L, M |
 (Muslim, with vowel marks) | M, U, S, O, L, I, M |
 (Muslim, with vowel marks and kashidas) | M, U, -, S, O, -, L, I, -, M |
 (Islam) | A, S, L, M |
 (Qur’an) | Q, R, E, N |
 (Libya) | L, Y, B, Y, A |
 (Qatar) | Q, Shift+T, R |
 (Oman) | E, M, A, N |
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