Arabic Book Formatting and Typesetting Services
Precise, right-to-left Arabic typesetting for books, brochures, and print-ready documents — correct letterforms, tashkeel, and layout, handled by typesetters who work in Arabic script every day.
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What Is Arabic Book Typesetting?
Arabic book typesetting is the layout and composition of a manuscript in Arabic script for print or digital publication. It’s a separate discipline from translation: a translator converts meaning from one language to another, while a typesetter arranges the translated (or original) Arabic text into a readable, correctly structured page. That means right-to-left text flow, contextual letter shaping (every Arabic letter changes form depending on where it sits in a word), accurate tashkeel (vowel diacritics) placement, and justification using kashida rather than word spacing. A translation agency without in-house Arabic typesetting expertise will often hand you a document that reads correctly but looks broken — misjoined letters, backwards numerals, uneven line color, or diacritics sitting in the wrong place.
Client Work and Portfolio
200+ books typeset across religious, academic, and commercial publishing, for clients including Looh Press, Imam Ghazali Publishing, the Islamic Banking Industry of Pakistan, and AAOIFI (Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions). Work has covered everything from full Quranic text with tashkeel to multi-volume scholarly reference series and bilingual Arabic-English academic titles.
Arabic Typesetting vs. Translation
translation changes the language, typesetting changes the layout — and most translation agencies only do the first one well. A translator’s job ends once the Arabic text is accurate. A typesetter’s job is making that text sit correctly on the page: right-to-left flow, properly joined letters, correct tashkeel placement, and justification that doesn’t leave ugly gaps or cramped lines. Plenty of agencies advertise both but subcontract the typesetting, which is exactly how documents end up with backwards page order or numerals in the wrong direction. We do our typesetting in-house, by people who work in Arabic layout every day — not as an afterthought to translation.
200+
BOOKS TYPESET
7+
COUNTRIES SERVED
Arabic Book Formatting Services We Offer
From a single self-published title to a multi-volume scholarly series, every project gets the same in-house attention: correct RTL structure, proper letter shaping, and a print- or eBook-ready file at the end.
Quranic Text Formatting with Tashkeel
Full tashkeel and tajweed-sensitive layout for Quranic passages, handled with the accuracy the text demands — no shortcuts, no auto-generated diacritics.
Bilingual Arabic-English Layout
Clean RTL/LTR alignment for dual-language books, with both languages reading naturally in their own direction and nothing colliding at the margin.
Academic and Scholarly Book Layout
Clean, consistent structure for references, citations, and multi-chapter scholarly works — built to hold up across a 300+ page manuscript, not just a sample chapter.
Poetry and Classical Text Formatting
Line breaks and meter preserved for classical Arabic poetry and diwans, laid out with the balance the form calls for, not squeezed into a generic template.
Print and eBook (EPUB/KDP) Formatting
Print-ready PDFs with correct trim, bleed, and embedded fonts, or EPUB files formatted for Kindle and other eReaders — both output from the same typeset file.
Footnotes, Endnotes, and Reference-Heavy Manuscripts
Heavily footnoted works, indexes, and cross-referenced texts kept legible and correctly numbered, even when references stack up page after page.
Arabic Numerals: Which System Does Your Book Need?
Clients often ask us to use “Arabic numbers” — but that phrase is ambiguous, and getting it wrong is one of the most common Arabic typesetting mistakes. There are three numeral systems in play, and which one your book needs depends on its target country, not just its language:
| Numeral System | Sample | Where It’s Used |
| European (Western Arabic) | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia |
| Arabic-Indic | ٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ | Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Gulf states |
| Eastern Arabic-Indic | ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹ | Iran, Afghanistan (Persian/Farsi, not Arabic) |
Why Arabic Typesetting Isn’t Just “Flipping the Page”
A lot of agencies treat Arabic as “English, mirrored.” It isn’t. Three things make Arabic typesetting a genuinely different discipline, and getting any one of them wrong is what makes a document look amateur:
Key Arabic Typography Terms
A few terms that come up throughout this page, defined plainly:
- Tashkeel — the diacritical marks that indicate short vowels in Arabic text
- Kashida — a horizontal stroke used to stretch and justify Arabic text, in place of extra word spacing
- Naskh — a clean, highly legible Arabic typeface style commonly used for body text and Quranic printing
- RTL (right-to-left) — the reading and layout direction for Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and related scripts
- Ligature — two or more Arabic letters joined into a single connected glyph
- Tatweel — an elongation character used to stretch letterforms, closely related to kashida
Testimonials
Very professional and fast delivery, highliy recommend the service.
Truly delivered a MASTERCLASS in interior design and typesetting.
Great work! Will be consulting him again for future calligraphy projects.
Our Arabic Book Typesetting Process
Five stages, the same way every time: Manuscript Review, Layout & Typesetting, Font and Numeral System Selection, Proofing & QA, then Revision & Final Delivery. Nothing skips the proofing stage — that’s where misjoined letters and misplaced diacritics get caught before you ever see the file.
Who We Work With
- Religious schools and Islamic institutions
- Scholars and academic researchers
- Publishing houses and institutes
- Self-publishing authors
- Academic institutions
- Dawah organizations