Designing with Arabic text as a non-Arabic speaker is more common than you'd think — global brands, agencies, and freelancers regularly need to incorporate Arabic into a layout without being able to read it themselves. It's entirely possible to do this well if you understand a handful of structural rules that have nothing to do with vocabulary.
Rule 1: Arabic reads right to left
This is the most important structural fact and it affects more than just text alignment. In a bilingual layout, the Arabic column or block should generally sit on the right side of the composition, with the reading flow moving right to left, mirroring how a Latin layout flows left to right. Punctuation, parentheses, and even UI elements like arrows or progress indicators should mirror direction when placed near Arabic text — this is what CSS calls "RTL" (right-to-left) layout.
Rule 2: letters connect — never rearrange them manually
Arabic script is cursive by nature: most letters change shape depending on whether they're at the start, middle, or end of a word, and they physically connect to their neighbors. This means you can never treat Arabic letters like independent Latin characters — you can't manually kern, rotate, or reposition individual letters without breaking the connections that make the word readable. Always treat an Arabic word as a single indivisible unit, and let the font's shaping engine (which every modern browser and design tool has) handle letter connections automatically.
Rule 3: diacritics (tashkeel) are optional, not decorative
The small marks that sometimes appear above and below Arabic letters — fatha, kasra, damma, and others, collectively called tashkeel — indicate short vowels and pronunciation. Everyday Arabic text (signage, headlines, most branding) omits them entirely, since fluent readers don't need them. They typically only appear in Qur'anic text, children's books, or poetry where precise pronunciation matters. If a client's text includes them, keep them — don't strip them out as "extra decoration," since they change meaning and pronunciation.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Flipping or mirroring the Arabic text horizontally to "match" a Latin design — this doesn't create RTL layout, it just makes the words unreadable nonsense.
- Stretching individual letters to fill a space — the shaping breaks and the word becomes illegible. Resize the whole text box or font size instead.
- Using a Latin-only font with Arabic Unicode text — most Latin fonts have no Arabic glyphs and will render as empty boxes ("tofu"). Always confirm your chosen font explicitly supports Arabic script.
- Assuming all Arabic-script languages look the same — Arabic, Persian (Farsi), and Urdu share a base script but differ in letterforms and preferred styles (Nasta'liq for Persian/Urdu, Naskh/Kufic for Arabic). Confirm the target language before choosing a font family.
How to sanity-check your work without reading Arabic
- Paste your final text into a translation tool and back-translate it — if the client's original phrase doesn't roughly match, something got corrupted in copy-paste (a very common source of errors with RTL text in design software).
- Compare letter connections visually against how the same text renders in our generator or font previewer — if letters look disconnected or oddly isolated, the font or input method dropped a character.
- Always get a native speaker to do a final proofread before publishing — this guide prevents structural mistakes, but only a fluent reader can catch typos or awkward phrasing.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my Arabic text show as empty boxes?
This usually means the font you're using doesn't include Arabic glyphs. Many Latin-only fonts render Arabic Unicode text as empty boxes ("tofu") because they have no matching characters. Switch to a font that explicitly supports Arabic script.
Can I manually reposition individual Arabic letters in my design?
No — Arabic letters connect to their neighbors and change shape based on position in the word. Manually repositioning or rotating individual letters breaks these connections and makes the text unreadable. Always treat a word as a single unit.
Is Persian (Farsi) the same script as Arabic?
They share the same base script, but Persian and Urdu typically use the Nasta'liq style with additional letters, while standard Arabic mainly uses Naskh or Kufic. Confirm the target language before choosing a font family.
