About ClavierEnArabe

What does ClavierEnArabe do?

ClavierEnArabe is an independent project. Its core is an online Arabic keyboard: you click the keys, or type on your own keyboard, and the Arabic text is written right to left in the input box. You can then copy it, download it as a text file, or send it to a search, a translation or a message.

The keyboard has several modes:

• Standard Arabic: the Arabic layout used on computers, with its Shift layer.
• QWERTY: each key also shows the English key at that position, so you can find the right key. The French site offers an AZERTY version for French keyboards.
• Phonetic: you type in Latin letters and each letter becomes an Arabic letter. The conversion is letter by letter: salam gives سالام, while slam gives سلام. Details on the English to Arabic keyboard page.
• Harakat and digits: a row of short vowels (Arabic keyboard with harakat) and a switch for Eastern Arabic digits.

Around the tool, the site explains the Arabic alphabet and how to turn on Arabic on Windows, an iPhone or an Android phone. It also offers an Arabic typing test and an Arabic calligraphy generator. The site started in French; more guides are available on the French version.

How was the keyboard built?

The keyboard is a small JavaScript program that runs in your browser. There is nothing to install and no account to create. The text you type is never sent to our servers: the page contains no call that would transmit it. What is recorded (and what is not) is detailed in the privacy policy.

The whole layout comes from a single data file: the keys, the Shift layer, the AZERTY and QWERTY labels, the phonetic rules, the harakat, the hamza forms, the punctuation and the dialect letters. The same file draws the keyboard, prints the tables on the pages and runs the tests, so the keyboard you see and the tables you read cannot contradict each other.

Before each release, automated tests check the key mapping, the Shift layer, all 28 letters, the AZERTY labels, every phonetic rule shown on the site, the digits and the removal of harakat. The keyboard is also tested in a real browser, on a computer screen and on a phone-sized screen.

Arabic letters are displayed with the Noto Naskh Arabic font and the interface with Manrope. Both fonts are under a free license (SIL Open Font License) and served from our own site, with no call to an external service.

Every letter you type is a standard Unicode character, which is what lets you paste it as is into any app. The Unicode Consortium, which maintains that standard, puts it this way:

“Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language.”

Which editorial principles do we follow?

• Describe only what exists. Pages only present features that are really in the keyboard. When a feature has a limit, we say so: for example, the Listen button only appears if your device has an Arabic voice.
• Check menu paths. Steps for Windows, macOS, iPhone, Android and apps are taken from the publishers' official help pages (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Samsung…), cited as sources on each guide. When we cannot verify a procedure, we do not publish the page.
• No invented numbers. No user counts, ratings, reviews or testimonials made up.
• Arabic checked twice. Every Arabic word, letter form and transliteration is checked, because a single mistake is enough to teach a wrong form.
• Independence. ClavierEnArabe is not affiliated with any system or app publisher. Trademarks belong to their owners and are named only to explain how to type Arabic on their products.

Who is behind the site?

ClavierEnArabe is an independent project, published under this name. We do not publish biographies: what matters here is that the keyboard works and that each explanation is correct. Legal information about the publisher and the host is in the legal notice, and the rules of use in the terms of use (both in French).

How do you report an error?

A misplaced letter, a phonetic rule that gives the wrong result, a menu that changed in a new version of Windows or Android: write to us at contact@clavierenarabe.net. If possible, tell us the page, the device and the browser you used. Every confirmed correction is applied and the page's update date changes. More on the contact page.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• What is Unicode? — Unicode Consortium