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Hello,

I installed Office 2010 on PlayOnLinux 4.2.10 and it works correctly.

There's one thing that doesn't work: the arabic language support.

The documents written in arabic were not displayed correctly (the characters were not related). I searched the internet and I have done a change inside POL:

I opened the Microsoft Word configuration -> Miscellaneous -> Launch a shell. Then I typed POL_Wine_AutoSetVersionEnv. Then I launched Winetricks inside the Office 2010 Prefix in POL and I installed usp10.dll. Then I opened POL's Wine config and I added usp10.dll in the override section as Native.

Now the arabic documents are displayed correctly but it didn't solve all the problem. I can't type arabic correctly (characters are not related).

So usp10.dll is OK for displaying arabic correctly but it's not sufficient to type in arabic (or I missed something).

I tried to add arabic in Word's configuration, but the language appears as "keyboard layout = not enabled (or not activated)". In a real Windows installation, clicking on that "not activated" text opens "Advanced text services" (for xp, "Text services and Input languages" in more recent Windows), but in POL's Word it does nothing.

Can you please help me to get arabic typing working? Is there a way to get this component of the control panel activated? Is there something in the registry that needs to be changed? Is there another way to solve this problem (without looking for cpl, rundll32 and shell32 files)?

Thank you.

Thank you very much guys for the replies...

My problem is related to RTL languages support, it has been discussed here for example, with no definitive solution:
https://www.playonlinux.com/fr/topic-11298-Hebrew_Font_is_messed_up.html

I finally understood how it works and I found a workaround.

PlayOnLinux uses the system locale settings and apply them to the applications installed on it.

For example, if your Linux system is in French, then POL's Office will activate only the french for the keyboard layout. (to know your locale settings, just type the command "locale" in a console, it will return "LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8" [if in french] and other lines).
If your system is in arabic ("locale" cammand indicates LANG=ar_MA.UTF-8 [or another arabic variant such as ar_SA]), then POL's Office will activate only the arabic for the keyboard layout.

In order to launch Word in arabic without changing the system locale settings, you have to create a shortcut for each language.

1) For the arabic Word shortcut you need to indicate the following command:
LC_ALL=ar_MA.utf8 /usr/share/playonlinux/playonlinux --run "Microsoft Word 2010"

Change "ar_MA" with the language and variant you want, it works with other RTL languages.

2) For the french Word shortcut you need to indicate the following command:
LC_ALL=fr_FR.utf8 /usr/share/playonlinux/playonlinux --run "Microsoft Word 2010"

If the shortcut contains only the following command /usr/share/playonlinux/playonlinux --run "Microsoft Word 2010", it will pick the system locale language and activate the corresponding keyboard only.

At the end, you will have two Microsoft Word 2010 shortcuts (give them different names), one for the RTL language and another one for the latin language, so you can type in the language you want without changing the system locale settings (nor reboot the session) each time. It's not a definitive solution because I'm unable to activate both languages at the same time, and I don't know if it's possible, because the "Advanced text settings" are not implemented in Wine (no corresponding cpl files), nor in PlayOnLinux.

I hope this will help people that need to use both latin and RTL languages in Microsoft Word 2010 on PlayOnLinux.

Bye.

Hi,

almost 4 years past from the last reply to this topic and I still have this problem.

the above workaround works well but when we have a multilingual doc, everything becomes messy.  for example, if I run word in my language, I can't type English correctly. We need a way to enable both keyboard layouts at the same time. I hope there is a new solution to this after these four years. :)

Perhaps you may look at: https://www.codeweavers.com/

To enable Arabic typing in Microsoft Office 2010 using PlayOnLinux (POL), you'll need to configure both your operating system and the Office suite to support Arabic input. Here are the steps to set this up:

Configure Your Operating System for Arabic Input:

For Ubuntu/Linux:

a. Open the "System Settings" or "Settings" application on your Linux distribution.

b. Go to the "Language & Region" or "Region & Language" section.

c. Add Arabic as a language, if it's not already listed. You may need to click the "+" button and select Arabic.

d. Set Arabic as your input source/keyboard layout. Click on the Arabic language you added and choose the keyboard layout you prefer (e.g., Arabic (Egypt), Arabic (Saudi Arabia), etc.).

e. Configure the keyboard layout switching shortcut if necessary. You can typically find this in the "Keyboard Shortcuts" or "Keyboard" settings. Make sure you can switch between Arabic and your default language.

f. Apply the changes and close the settings.

Install Microsoft Office 2010 with PlayOnLinux (POL):

a. Install PlayOnLinux if you haven't already. You can usually find it in your Linux distribution's package manager.

b. Open PlayOnLinux and follow the prompts to set up a virtual environment for Microsoft Office 2010.

c. Install Microsoft Office 2010 within the virtual environment according to PlayOnLinux's instructions.

Configure Microsoft Office 2010 for Arabic Typing:

a. Open any Microsoft Office application (e.g., Word).

b. Click on the "File" menu.

c. Click on "Options" (or "Word Options" in Word).

d. In the Word Options (or Options) window, go to the "Language" section.

e. Under "Choose Editing Languages," add Arabic as an editing language.

f. Set Arabic as the default editing language if desired.

g. Click "OK" to save your settings.

Switch Keyboard Layout to Arabic:

When you want to type in Arabic, use the keyboard layout switching shortcut you configured in your operating system settings. This will switch your keyboard layout to Arabic.

Start Typing in Arabic:

Once you've switched to the Arabic keyboard layout, you can start typing in Arabic in your Microsoft Office applications.

Remember to switch back to your default keyboard layout when you're finished typing in Arabic.

These steps should enable you to type in Arabic within Microsoft Office 2010 using PlayOnLinux on your Linux system.