[developers] Arabic shaping and reversing

[Meitham Jamaa <meitham at reportlab dot com>]

Hello,

I am new to the list so I am not sure this is the right place to ask.

We are working on adding Arabic support for ReportLab (our opensource python-based pdf library). We
  would like to rely on calling a library that supports Arabic shaping (and character revering)
than inventing this in our library.

Some contributors have submitted batches to the reportlab-users list with working code that can
print Hebrew and Arabic using PyFriBidi, however some users said that batch could not do Farsi (or
Pashto) shaping. Here is the thread for that conversation
http://two.pairlist.net/pipermail/reportlab-users/2009-November/008992.html

We have also looked at the PyICU library but we could not figure out if the layout engine binding
to ICU4C has been implemented or not.

I'm wondering if anyone on this list has any experience with a good library that can handle the
shaping for us, or has any suggestion or recommendation.

Best regards
-- 
Meitham Jamaa
ReportLab Europe Ltd.
Media House, 3 Palmerston Road, Wimbledon, London SW19 1PG, UK
Tel +44-20-8545-1570