Dear Vika,
(disclaimer: I don't actually use Arabic or Persian myself)
I don't understand the problem. If the text is already written you can just paste it in. After you have pasted it, I would recommend applying the appropriate language attribute. Actually my own recommendation would be to first define one or more character styles and attach the language attribute to that. This will allow you to more easily control the font, etc.
If you need to type the languages yourself, you should also enable the relevant keyboard(s), which is done in the System Preferences. In Nisus' language preferences make sure to check the preference to switch the keyboard with the language. Then switch the language attribute (or use the character style) and the keyboard will switch and you can type. Directionality will match the script.
Having said this I am aware that there are delicate points about the treatment of spaces, punctuation, and numbers, especially at the border between the languages, for which you may need to get advice from actual R-L language specialists.
In the old days there was a need for directionality settings, dongles, etc. Thats all in the past know, I believe.
best
P. Spaelti
I feel silly for needing to ask this, but I am attempting to embed some Arabic text (from YouTube) into a citation that needs to be in English. Although I expect I will transliterate it later, for now I just want to stick with the Arabic as it appears in YouTube.
The citation format is:
name (2015) title. Available at: https://youtu.be/Fwg1koXr-V4 (accessed 13 Sep 2016).
The Arabic to be inserted is (name line 1, title line 2)
دكتور ذاكر نايك مترجم
حوار د.ذاكر نايك مع ملحد اسئلة وإجابات مذهلة
Although I used to do this regularly in the opposite direction (putting English into Persian), it was a very long time ago, and many OS's back. So things might well have changed.
Does anyone know how I should go about this? It's not likely to be the only one of these.
Thanks!
______________________________________
Vika Gardner, PhD
Hampshire College, School of Cognitive Science
Islam and Science Research Fellow, 2014-16
412-255-0180 home; 413-559-6847 office