How to Get Correct Arabic Text Into AI-Generated Images: Two Methods and a Five-Minute Test

Do not make the image model responsible for your Arabic words. For anything you will publish, generate the picture WITHOUT text and leave empty space, then add the Arabic in a design editor on its own text layer. That goes for posters, social posts, thumbnails, ads and greeting cards alike: one reversed letter or misplaced dot is enough to turn a campaign into a joke, and no vendor today guarantees its model writes Arabic correctly.

Ask the model to draw Arabic only for one to three short words where the lettering is part of the art (a shop sign, neon, calligraphy), and check it letter by letter. Never publish an AI-generated graphic until you have inspected every stroke, dot, and connection at full magnification.

Why Arabic Script Breaks in Generated Images

Arabic is hard for image models because of how the script works: characters join in cursive, words flow right to left, and letters change shape based on whether they appear in an isolated, initial, medial, or final position. A model drawing a word as a picture can fail to connect letters, leaving disconnected isolated forms inside words, or flip directionality so the word reads left to right. Furthermore, Arabic relies on diacritical dots to distinguish entirely different letters: the identical base stroke represents ب, ت, ث, ن, or ي depending purely on dot placement and count. Every one of those dots is a chance to get it wrong. Complex elements like the mandatory lam-alef ligature (لا), the terminal taa marbuta (ة), and Eastern Arabic-Indic digits (٠١٢٣) can collapse into distorted Latin lookalikes or mirrored symbols. For wider layout considerations, consult our guide to Arabic presentations with AI.

The major vendors remain silent on non-Latin capabilities. In the official ChatGPT Images documentation for ChatGPT Images 2.6, OpenAI states that Images “can follow instructions to add text, add details within the image, or make the background transparent,” but names no languages and says nothing about Arabic. In Google’s Nano Banana Pro announcement from November 2025, Google calls it “the best model for creating images with correctly rendered and legible text directly in the image” and notes it renders text “in multiple languages,” without naming Arabic. Meanwhile, Ideogram stresses “advanced text rendering,” but publishes no statement about Arabic or non-Latin text. (We could not open Ideogram’s pricing page, so we quote no prices.) Because nobody promises Arabic, treat it as untested.

Method 1: The Reliable Route

1. Write the prompt for the scene only, saying where to leave clean empty space and explicitly “no text, no letters, no logos”. Ready-to-copy example prompt: A commercial studio photograph of (your product) centered on a smooth stone podium, warm morning sunlight, desert botanical elements. The top third and right side must remain clean empty space with a soft blurred background, no text, no letters, no logos.
2. Pick the aspect ratio for the platform.
3. Generate in ChatGPT Images or Gemini; remove stray pseudo-letters with ChatGPT’s selection tool or Ideogram Magic Fill.
4. Download and open in a design editor such as Canva.
5. Add the Arabic on a text layer with a proper Arabic font.
6. Run the shaping check from the five-minute test below inside the editor.
7. Export your graphic, and keep the editable file. According to the Canva Grab Text help page, “Grab Text only works with Latin text” and does not support non-Latin alphabets (“We do not support rotated or arched text, languages that do not use the Latin alphabet…”). Arabic burned into a picture cannot be turned back into editable text that way, so always preserve your layered source file. For workflow comparisons, see our Canva vs Adobe Firefly guide.

Method 2: When the Lettering Is the Art

1. Put the exact words in quotation marks in the prompt.
2. Keep it to one to three words.
3. State “Arabic script, right to left, connected letters”.
4. Describe the surface (neon sign, painted wall, embroidered).
5. Generate several versions.
6. Zoom in and compare letter by letter with the word you typed.
7. Fix a wrong letter by selecting just that area (ChatGPT selection tool, whose highlights “are not always precise, and edits may extend beyond the area you selected”; Ideogram Magic Fill; Gemini’s Nano Banana Pro localized editing). If after two or three tries it is still wrong, erase the text area and go back to Method 1.

A Five-Minute Arabic Verification Test

Before trusting any tool with your campaign assets, run this five-minute test using three phrases of rising difficulty:

• (a) One word: سلام (peace / hello), testing isolated versus connected forms and basic right-to-left flow.
• (b) A phrase full of dots: تخفيضات نهاية الأسبوع (weekend discounts), testing dense diacritical dots above and below characters and medial letter joining.
• (c) Lam-alef, taa marbuta and Arabic-Indic digits: عرض لا يتكرر ٢٥٪ (roughly “a 25% offer that won’t be repeated”), testing the compulsory lam-alef ligature, terminal taa marbuta, and Eastern Arabic-Indic numerals. For catching broader linguistic errors, consult our guide to proofreading Arabic text with AI.

Evaluate your test outputs against this structural checklist:

Run the same test in the design editor too: type phrase (c) (عرض لا يتكرر ٢٥٪) into Canva or your software, and confirm that the letters join, the lam-alef shapes correctly, and the line runs right to left.

Which Tool for Which Job

Match your project needs to each tool’s documented capabilities and limitations:

Limits, Honestly

We did not benchmark these tools and no vendor documents Arabic accuracy. Because generative AI systems evolve constantly and results change with every model update, rerun the five-minute test whenever a tool updates. Never publish an image whose Arabic you have not read in full at 100% zoom. For a logo or brand name, use the real artwork, not a generated one.

If you are an English-speaking marketer, designer, or agency professional creating campaigns for audiences across the Gulf, Egypt, the Levant, or North Africa and do not read Arabic yourself, establish a mandatory native-speaker checkpoint. Have a native Arabic speaker inspect the final rendered image before publication. A quick native review catches reversed words, detached letters, or misplaced dots that appear decorative to an untrained eye but read as confusing gibberish to your audience.