Arabic & Urdu Typesetting for Books
Typesetting a native reader will accept — correct line breaking, proper handling of Nastaliq and Naskh, Quranic passages set with their diacritics, and print-ready files your printer will take without argument.
A manuscript is not a book. Between the finished text and the press sits the work that decides whether the result looks professional or amateur — and in Arabic and Urdu, that work is genuinely harder than in English.
Why Arabic typesetting goes wrong
Most page-layout software was designed around Latin text, where justification means adding space between words. Arabic does not work that way, and the failures are specific:
Broken letter joins
Arabic letters connect. Software that justifies by stretching gaps can sever those joins, producing words that are technically the right letters and visibly wrong.
Nastaliq collisions
Nastaliq cascades diagonally and needs far more vertical space than Naskh. Set it at Naskh line height and descenders hit the ascenders below.
Displaced diacritics
Fatha, kasra, damma and shadda sit above and below letters. Poor handling drifts them off their letter, which in a Quranic passage changes the reading.
Mixed-direction text
An English name or a page number inside an Arabic line has to be positioned correctly, or the sentence reads out of order.
Footnotes and indexes
Reference numbering runs the other way. Software assuming left-to-right puts markers on the wrong side and sorts indexes into an order no reader recognises.
The common factor is that all of these look fine to a designer who does not read the script. They are obvious to the person who does — which, for your book, is every reader.
What we typeset
- Islamic books in Arabic, Urdu, Persian and regional languages
- Translated works where Arabic passages sit alongside the translation
- Quran and Hadith collections, with references and apparatus
- Academic and research texts with footnotes, citations and indexes
- Reprints and re-typesetting of older books from scans
Translated with us, typeset with us
If we translated or digitized the book, typesetting is the natural next step and we already have the text in a clean, structured form — headings that are headings, tables that are tables, poetry that kept its line breaks. That saves the step where a typesetter rebuilds structure by hand from a flat document.
We also typeset books we did not translate. If you have a finished manuscript, send it.
Starting from a printed book?
If the only copy is on paper, it has to be digitized before it can be typeset. That is $20 for a book of 100 to 200 pages and takes under an hour.
See book digitization →What you receive
- Print-ready PDF to your printer's specification
- Source files, so you are not dependent on us for future editions
- A digital version for distribution if you want one
- A proof round, because the author or a scholar should see it before it prints
Common questions
What is Arabic typesetting, exactly?
Setting the text for print so it reads correctly: line breaking that respects letter joins, correct baseline and line height for the script, and diacritics that stay on their letters.
Can our existing designer not do this?
They may be able to. Ask them how they handle justification without breaking letter joins, and what line height they use for Nastaliq. If those questions land well, use them.
Do you work in Nastaliq or only Naskh?
Both. They are different typesetting problems and need different layouts, not the same layout with the font swapped.
What does it cost?
It depends on length, complexity and how much apparatus the book carries. Send the manuscript and page count for a real figure rather than a range.
How long does a book take?
Days rather than weeks for a straightforward book. Heavy footnotes, tables or facing-page translation take longer, and we will say so before starting.
Send us a sample page
Send one page of your manuscript and we will typeset it so you can judge the result before committing a book to it.
Or email contact@qaafai.com
Related
Only on paper?
Digitize it first. $20 for a book of 100 to 200 pages.
Book digitization →Names in Latin letters
Free transliteration tools for Arabic, Urdu and six other scripts.
Transliteration tools →Doing it yourself
One credit balance covers translation, transliteration and transcription.
See packages →