Dimnah: contrasting Arabic strokes for a short heading

Dimnah is a historical Arabic family in the Arabeyes collection. Its contrasting strokes and curved joins offer a different starting point from a uniform sans font when you are setting a short editorial title or a cultural quotation.

The original Regular file

This download contains ae_Dimnah.ttf at weight 400 from the official Arabeyes 2.0 distribution. The file’s internal version reads “V.1.000:AGA:24 November 1994”; it is a historical name record, not the distribution number. The metadata credits regeneration to Nadim Shaikli and names MAK Alagha as manufacturer.

Dimnah contains Arabic and Latin characters, both Arabic-Indic and Western digits, and eight common Arabic diacritics. The Persian letter set is incomplete. Arabic joins and marked samples were checked with HarfBuzz and Chrome; use your own passage to check spacing, punctuation and line breaks in the final application.

Contrast at the size you will publish

Try a two-line heading before committing to a paragraph style. Thin parts of the drawing can change their presence after reduction or export, while vowel marks may require more line spacing. A successful large title does not establish suitability for every book size or reading environment.

Compare Amiri for a more extensive text-setting project, then Markazi Text on a short passage. Browse Naskh Arabic families and fonts for posters and ads. For separate Latin supporting text, try Source Serif 4 and compare its apparent weight with the included Latin.

Editable source and document embedding

The GPL version 2 with a font exception permits use and redistribution under its terms. The exception means embedding alone does not place a document under the GPL. The ZIP supplies the original TTF, corresponding FontForge SFD, official build driver and README/COPYING notices, including the Free UCS attribution for Latin glyphs.

The original fsType=4, “Preview & Print”, flag is preserved; some applications may restrict embedding despite the license. Check the official Arabeyes archive and Dimnah source revision. Prepare a passage with the Arabic keyboard and follow the font installation guide.