USER_GUIDE.md

Adobe Arabic Character Sets - User Guide

Last Updated: 2025-10-22

Quick Start

I want to...

• Design a font for Arabic → Use Character Set Files
• Add romanization to my font → Use Romanization Files + Adobe Latin 3
• Look up how a character is romanized → See How to Look Up Romanization
• Parse data programmatically → See Programmatic Access
• Verify against official standards → See arabic-roman-standards.md

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Quick Reference

Character Set Files (Arabic Script)

File	Use For	Details
adobe-arabic-1.txt	Basic Arabic	See README
adobe-arabic-2.txt	Urdu, Persian, Punjabi	See README
adobe-arabic-3.txt	Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz	See README
adobe-arabic-4.txt	Kashmiri, Saraiki, Balti	See README
adobe-arabic-5.txt	Pashto, Sindhi, Kurdish, Balochi	See README

Romanization Files (Latin Script)

Important: All romanization modules require Adobe Latin 3

File	Use For	Details
adobe-arabic-1-roman.txt	Romanizing Arabic	See README
adobe-arabic-2-roman.txt	Romanizing Urdu, Persian, Punjabi	See README
adobe-arabic-3-roman.txt	Romanizing Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz	See README
adobe-arabic-4-roman.txt	Romanizing Kashmiri, Saraiki, Balti	See README
adobe-arabic-5-roman.txt	Romanizing extended languages	See README

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How to Look Up Romanization

"How is this Arabic character romanized?"

Go to: documentation/arabic-roman-source.md

This file contains tables showing how each character is romanized across different standards (BGN/PCGN, UNGEGN, ALA-LC, ISO, etc.)

Example:

• Looking for how ع (Ayn) is romanized in BGN/PCGN?
• Find the Arabic or Urdu table
• Look up Unicode 0639
• Check the BGN/PCGN column

Notation

• b = single romanization
• k/g = multiple options (context-dependent)
• - = not used in this standard

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Programmatic Access

Parse Character Sets (Python)

# Read character set files (tab-delimited)
with open('adobe-arabic-1.txt', 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    lines = f.readlines()[1:]  # Skip header
    for line in lines:
        if line.strip() and not line.startswith('#'):
            unicode_code, char, glyph, name, notes = line.split('\t')
            print(f"{unicode_code}: {char} ({glyph})")

Access Romanization Mappings (Python)

# Load romanization mappings from standards_mappings/
import sys
sys.path.insert(0, '.')
from standards_mappings import get_standard_mappings, get_metadata

# Get mappings for a specific standard
mappings = get_standard_mappings('BGN/PCGN Urdu')
# Returns: {'0628': 'b', '067E': 'p', '062A': 't', ...}

# Get metadata
metadata = get_metadata('BGN/PCGN Urdu')
# Returns: {'standard_name': 'BGN/PCGN Urdu', 'table_type': 'urdu', ...}

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Common Standards

• BGN/PCGN - Geographic names (US/UK)
• UNGEGN - Geographic names (UN)
• ALA-LC - Library cataloging
• ISO 233 - International standard
• IPA - Phonetic transcription

See documentation/arabic-roman-standards.md for complete list with official source URLs.

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Resources

• Interactive Browser - Visual reference
• README.md - Module descriptions and language support
• arabic-roman-source.md - Romanization lookup tables
• arabic-roman-standards.md - Official standard documentation

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