How to Write Arabic on Android (Or Any Non Latin Characters)

Welcome to cellphone88.com. In this article, I will give you a tutorial how to write Arabic or any non latin character (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc) on Android. Many Android phones or tablet actually already support Arabic letter. But, there are many people that don’t know how to activate it.

To find out if the Android phone already support Arabic letter or not, you can do the following:

1. Go to Settings
2. Click Language & Keyboard
3. Click on the Android Keyboard Settings
4. Click the Input Language
5. Give a check mark on “Arabic”

To write Arabic on Android, when the keyboard is active or you can see the keyboard, slide the Space Bar to the left or right until the key letter turns into Arabic. If you can’t slide the Space Bar, try to press it for several seconds until the language selection menu appear.

Not all Android phones or tablet have a keyboard with Arabic layout despite the fact that the system already support is. To overcome this problem, the users can install alternative keyboard from Market. Some of Android keyboard application that have Arabic layout are Smart Keyboard Pro, A.I. Type Keyboard, MultiLing keyboard and many more.

In this article, I will give you a tutorial to write Arabic on Android using MultiLing Keyboard.

The first thing to do is install MultiLing keyboard application (made by Honso) from the Android market. After that, you should activate the keyboard by clicking the application icon from the app drawer (the application list). It will show below picture:

Figure 1. MultiLing Keyboard Setup Menu

After that, you just have to follow the steps in accordance with the sequence number in the image above:

1. Click the option #1 (Enable MultiLing)> you’ll be taken to the “Language & Keyboard Settings” > give a check mark on the “MultiLing Keyboard”> Press the BACK button to return to the MultiLing Menu again.

2. Click the Option # 2 (Switch IME to MultiLing)> it will show the keyboard selection (Input Method)> select “MultiLing keyboard”

3. Click the option #3 (Download Plug-Ins)> you’ll be taken to the MultiLing developer website, as shown below:

Figure 2. Download the Dictionary Language Pack

Click the “Dictionaries for word prediction”> select “Arabic”> At “Download From” options, click the “Official Android Market”> if the pop up menu appears, click the “Market”> Click Download (Arabic Plugin)

4. Once the Arabic plug-in is downloaded, click again on the MultiLing application icon (Figure 1), then click the option #4 (Enable Languages)> Give a check mark on Arabic language. Try to scroll down the screen first if you can’t find it.

5. Done. Now you can type Arabic on your Android phone or tablet as shown below:

Figure 3. MultiLing keyboard with Arabic Key

To Change from Arabic to English or other language, press the space bar for a few seconds.

Changing MultiLing Theme

Here’s how to do it:

1. Open MultiLing Application
2. click “Keyboard Settings”
3. Click “Themes, sizes and layouts”
4. You can change the look from this menu, try it for yourself

Two common problems that might arise when using MultiLing to write Arabic on Android phone:

Problem number 1: The Letter is separated

Here’s how to solve this problem:

1. Go to MultiLing application (Figure 1)
2. Click the Keyboard Settings
3. Scroll down the screen, click the “Non-Latin” Settings
4. Click “Connect Arabic”

Problem number 2: Keyboard Key Display Boxes

If the keyboard displaying boxes or it’s not displaying proper Arabic letter, you can do below procedure:

1. Go to the Android Market and then type myscript in the search field
2. Install “MyScript” application made by Honso
3. Once the application is installed, go to the Multilink keyboard application (Figure 1)
4. Click “Enable Language”> Give a check mark on “Use MyScript Font”

If after you install MyScript, the keyboard key already shows appropriate Arabic letter (not boxes) but at the time you typing text, the letter on the screen is still display boxes, then there is a chance that your Android system does not support Arabic language.

However, you shouldn’t worry too much, if you need to send message with Arabic language via SMS, email, Facebook, etc, you can use MyScript application. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open MyScript application
2. Type a message or text that you want to send or post
3. When finished, press the MENU button> click Send> select the desired method, whether via SMS, Email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
4. You can also do the usual methods such as Copy Paste

Don’t worry if the texts turn back into boxes at the Messaging (SMS) application. If the recipient device is supported Arabic language, the messages / the text will look normal.

Beside support Arab Language, MultiLing keyboard also support many other language such as:

• Thailand
• Japan
• Korea
• China
• Hindi
• Russia
• Georgian
• Armenian
• Yiddish
• Hebrew
• And much more

If you want to write Japanese or Chinese or other language on Android, you can do same step as “how to write Arabic on Android” tutorial. The different is only at the language pack you downloaded. Regards, cellphone88.com 🙂