Arabic Fonts for Photoshop and Illustrator Artwork

What to look for in a design font

• Real weights: a family with true Bold, ExtraBold or Black weights gives cleaner results than the Faux Bold option in the Character panel.
• A built-in Latin: bilingual posts and mockups look consistent when both scripts come from the same family.
• A clear role for each face: one display face for the headline, one text face for the rest. An Arabic layout rarely needs more.
• Correct shaping in the app: the font supplies the letterforms, but Photoshop's text engine decides how they join.

Which font for which layer

Tajawal is the base for many layouts: seven weights from ExtraLight to Black and a matching Latin, heavy weights for headlines and Regular for body copy. Cairo offers a Kufi-based alternative in one variable file, from weight 200 to 1000 with a slant axis.

Noto Kufi Arabic is a simplified Kufi for large text such as titles and packaging fronts. Lalezar is a dense poster face with a single style; avoid Faux Bold on it, which can close its counters. Aref Ruqaa brings a handwritten Ruq'ah line to quotes and greetings, with a Latin based on Hermann Zapf's Euler.

Getting Arabic to work in Photoshop

• Unzip the download and install every TTF it contains, Regular and Bold included, or Photoshop has no real bold to offer. Cairo and Noto Kufi Arabic each come as a single variable file.
• Choose the Middle Eastern and South Asian text engine under Edit > Preferences > Type on Windows, or Photoshop > Settings > Type on a Mac. With the default engine, Arabic can show disconnected letters or reversed words.
• The setting applies to documents created after the change.
• In the Paragraph panel menu, choose a Middle Eastern & South Asian composer, then set the paragraph direction to right-to-left.
• Avoid online "Arabic fixer" tools that reverse the text and replace letters with presentation forms. Their output breaks once the engine is set correctly and cannot be edited cleanly.
• Illustrator and InDesign work the same way: Arabic layout depends on the composer as much as on the font.

Use the online Arabic keyboard to type a name or check a word before you paste it into the text layer. For body copy under a display title, the Arabic sans fonts include quieter families than Tajawal's heavy weights, and our guide to choosing an Arabic font explains when a display face is the right call. For print campaigns, see Arabic fonts for flyers and posters; for motion work, see Arabic fonts for video.