Fun with Farsi Text in LaTeX

Analyze the Data not the Drivel is a mouthful. This blog needs a short symbolic name. For sometime I have used ADND myself but that’s to close to ADHD for comfort. However if we treat ADND as a simple algebraic expression it becomes:

$ad^2n$

This is better but still not cool! If we replace Latin characters with colored Farsi equivalents and reverse the order we get:

The new symbolic name and logo for Analyze the Data not the Drivel.

To generate this with LaTeX you need a version that handles UTF-8 Unicode. I used LuaLaTeX. You also need an OTF or TTF font with Farsi or Arabic characters. The following LaTeX snippet generates my logo:

% process with LuaLaTeX file encoding is utf8

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{Arial}
\setmonofont{Courier New Bold}

\usepackage{color}
\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}

\begin{document}

% unicode oriented ttf font
%\setmainfont{IranNastaliq}

% ADND blog symbol - arabic/farsi text must end
% the line or the editor will break your parentheses
\Huge

$$ \textrm{\textcolor{Red}{ن
}}^2
\textrm{\textcolor{Green}{د
}}
\textrm{\textcolor{Blue}{ا
}}
$$

\normalsize

\end{document}