Is there any way to write Arabic text on images in python

Question

I used to see many programs that can render arabic text with no bugs just fine, but when it comes to python there is only one lib that i know of (arabic_reshaper) and it's not efficient yet as it contains bugs, so i wonder if there any way around like an api or some twisted efficient way to do this task?

You should be able to use Pango with the Cairo backend. It uses Harfbuzz for shaping, which supports Arabic. — Dietrich Epp, Aug 23 '20 at 04:37
@DietrichEpp can i find documentation for python-Pango ?, i mean i looked at it and it sounded no-documentation available for python ! — Ahmed4end, Aug 23 '20 at 04:40
You will probably have to figure some things out. Install an appropriate Python module, and look at is exports. Compare them to Cairo/Pango docs for other languages. This is what you often have to do if you are using a library written for a different language than the one you are using. Rendering text is an incredibly, insanely difficult problem so there are very few options at all. There is some example code out there though: https://www.cairographics.org/cookbook/pycairo_pango/ — Dietrich Epp, Aug 23 '20 at 04:47

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 09 '22 at 09:25

You can use Pillow without arabic_reshaper.

First of all you need have libraqm on your path. The Raqm library encapsulates the logic for complex text layouts and provides a convenient API. libraqm relies on the following libraries: FreeType, HarfBuzz, FriBiDi, make sure that you install them before installing libraqm if not available as package in your system.

if you using macos you can install libraqm with homebrew

brew install libraqm

Pillow wheels since version 8.2.0 include a modified version of libraqm that loads libfribidi at runtime if it is installed. The .text function takes the direction argument to the libraqm library, which enables pillow to support bidirectional text (using FriBiDi), shaping (using HarfBuzz), and also proper script itemization.

Additionally, you need a font for the language you wish to write in, such as an Arabic font.

import os

from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageFont


def main():
    image = Image.open(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "nature.jpeg"))
    font = ImageFont.truetype(
        os.path.join(
            os.path.dirname(__file__), "vazir-font-v28.0.0", "Vazir-Regular.ttf"
        ),
        100,
    )
    text = "طبیعت زیبای دوست داشتنی"
    canvas = ImageDraw.Draw(image)
    canvas.text((0, 0), text, (255, 255, 255), font=font, direction="rtl")
    image.save(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "result.jpg"))

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

thanks very much, i downloaded the dlls of libraqm and it seems to work very good, is ther any problems with converting project to exe in future? — Ahmed4end, Apr 09 '22 at 20:11
you're welcome @Ahmed4end, It should work out of the box, although I don't have any experience with it on windows. — arastu, Apr 11 '22 at 05:29

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 18 '21 at 04:09

Yes. You'll have to use arabic_reshaper & python-bidi and a proper font. After trying many fonts I found only 2 fonts working: "Pak Nastaleeq.ttf" & "AA Sameer Qamri Regular.ttf" You can download the .ttf file of any of these fonts & use that. Here's a n example code in python depicting how to do this:

from PIL import Image
from PIL import ImageDraw
from PIL import ImageFont
import arabic_reshaper
from bidi.algorithm import get_display
text = "چوكسے ہنجاریں الجمل تیج اکساہٹ"
reshaped_p = arabic_reshaper.reshape(text)
text = get_display(reshaped_p)
cat_image = Image.open("test_image.png")
drawing_on_img = ImageDraw.Draw(cat_image)
font = ImageFont.truetype('Pak Nastaleeq.ttf',size=15)
text_color = (201,50,250)
text_coordinates = (0,0)
drawing_on_img.text(text_coordinates,text,font=font,fill='black')
cat_image.save("text_on_test_imager.png")

Is there any way to write Arabic text on images in python

2 Answers2