Microsoft Maren Transliteration

Microsoft Maren Transliteration is intended to solve communication problems for Arabic users, enabling them to chat, send e-mails or perform searches in their native language, even if their computer is equipped with an English keyboard. Since it is based on transliteration techniques, it can also help an English user to communicate in Arabic.
The application is very easy to set up and no configuration is required whatsoever. It installs an additional language pack and a keyboard layout onto the system, enabling you to conveniently activate it from the dedicated section next to the system tray.
Once the Arabic language and the Maren keyboard layout is selected, you can write in Arabic within any application, be it a word processor, a web browser, an e-mail client or an instant messaging program.
Practically, you start writing any word in English and a popup window is immediately displayed beneath it, comprising multiple alternatives that you can choose from. Navigating through the different translation suggestions is done using the mouse or the keyboard arrows, while pressing 'Enter' replaces the oritginal English word with its translation.
Compared to other Arabic keyboard layouts you can add to Windows, the advantage of Microsoft Maren Transliteration is that it enables you to write the word exactly as you hear it, using Roman characters (Romanized Arabic, Franco-Arabic, Arabish or Arabizi), while the application automatically converts it to Arabic.
As a conclusion, Microsoft Maren Transliteration can be of use to any Arabic native who lives abroad, as well as English users who have Arabic friends they want to communicate with.