Diwan formatting is verse layout, not prose layout — misra pairing, qafiya alignment, and stanza structure built by hand, so a poem reads on the page the way it was written, not the way a Word template happened to break it.
Every diwan project is handled personally by Ata Rafi, Founder and Chief Formatter — not routed to a rotating pool of freelancers.
Diwan formatting is the layout of a collected work of Arabic poetry — a single poet's diwan, a multi-poet anthology, or a classical text republished as a critical edition. The unit of layout is the verse, not the paragraph: verse pairs (misra) are preserved as pairs, and rhyme (qafiya) lands consistently down the page instead of being reflowed as prose.
This is not Arabic Editorial Formatting, which handles running-text structure — footnotes, cross-references, heading hierarchy — for prose. A diwan has none of that as its primary structure. Formatting one as if it were a prose manuscript is exactly what causes the verse structure to collapse.
Arabic-script poetry inherits every one of those problems and adds three that don't exist in Latin-script verse:
The verse is run through a paragraph-style template. Each misra breaks wherever the column width forces it, the two halves of a verse land on different lines with no visual pairing, and the qafiya no longer lines up down the page.
The result reads as broken prose, not a poem.Each verse is laid out as one deliberate unit: the two misra held together as a pair, the qafiya aligned consistently from verse to verse, and stanza or poem breaks placed where the collection's own structure calls for them.
The verse reads as it was written — because it was placed by hand, not auto-flowed.Each verse is laid out as a matched pair of hemistichs, checked line by line so a pair never splits across a page or column break in a way that separates the two halves of one verse.
The rhyming word or syllable at the end of each verse is positioned consistently down the page, so the rhyme scheme stays visually legible — not obscured by uneven auto-justification.
A single poem, a themed grouping, or a full multi-poet anthology each need their own structural treatment — poem titles, section breaks, and a table of contents that reflects how the collection is actually organized, not a flat list of untitled text blocks.
Classical diwans are often republished with sharh — line-by-line or verse-by-verse commentary. Where a manuscript includes this, the commentary is laid out distinctly from the verse itself (margin notes, footnotes, or an interleaved format) so a reader can tell at a glance which text is the poem and which is the annotation.
Three different text types get confused with each other constantly. Here's the actual distinction:
Publishers producing a critical edition of a classical poet's collected works — usually with added sharh (commentary) that has to stay visually distinct from the verse itself.
Authors self-publishing a new poetry collection who've already seen a KDP or Word draft mangle their line breaks and want it done right the first time.
Organizations producing annotated or multi-poet anthology editions where poem-level structure and a real table of contents matter for academic or public use.
Editors preparing a bilingual or annotated edition where the original verse, a translation, and commentary all need to sit on the page without competing for space.
Every verse is laid out by hand in Adobe InDesign, checked against the misra pairing and qafiya alignment of the original text — not run through an automated template built for prose. See the portfolio for examples of this kind of structural work on other Arabic-script projects.
There's no flat per-page rate for diwan formatting, same as any other project — the quote reflects the manuscript's actual complexity: verse count, whether commentary (sharh) is included, and whether it's a single poem or a full multi-poet anthology. See Pricing & Quote for what drives a quote before you ask for one.
Diwan formatting is the layout of a collected work of Arabic poetry, where each verse is preserved as a matched misra pair with consistent qafiya (rhyme) alignment, instead of being reflowed as continuous prose.
Yes — the verse and its sharh (commentary) are laid out as clearly distinct elements, either as margin notes, footnotes, or an interleaved format, depending on how the original text is structured.
Self-publishing platforms auto-convert manuscripts and treat line breaks and indentation as cosmetic, often stripping or reflowing them — a documented issue for poetry generally, and one that's worse for Arabic verse because right-to-left text reflow doesn't break the same way English text does.
Not automatically — cost depends on the manuscript's actual complexity (verse count, whether sharh/commentary is included, single poem vs. anthology), the same way any project is quoted. See Pricing & Quote.
Yes — anthologies are structured with clear section breaks, poem-level titles, and a table of contents reflecting how the collection is organized, rather than treated as one undifferentiated block of verses.
The same verse-first approach applies. See Urdu Book Formatting for Urdu-specific typesetting, or get in touch with details about your manuscript.
