﻿So, this is how I got arabic to work with Arabtex:

Update Mar 24, 2014
With input from Gary King and David Romney, I realized that you can directly enter utf-8 into the latex file and Arabtex can recognize them.  I've updated the example to reflect that as typing in the Arabtex psuedo-arabic is annoying.  It also seems that you don't have to use the .sty file I downloaded anymore.  I managed to get it to compile with MikTex loading the package on the fly.

I edit and compile tex using TeXnicCenter, a freely available latex editor.

In the tex code, you can change the options
% === settings for arabtext ===

\setarab

\novocalize    % if you comment this out, then you get vowels

\transtrue
     % if you comment this out, then you don't get the transliteration
\arabtrue


%% START DOCUMENT


\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{arabtex}
\usepackage{utf8}
\begin{document}
%% Arabtex commands we don't use (but we could)
%\setarab
%\fullvocalize
%\transtrue
%\arabtrue
\setcode{utf8}
This is an example of arabic in latex using the Arabtex package:\\
\begin{RLtext}
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
\end{RLtext}
\vspace{5pt}\\
We can use a different command to just make a section of text right-to-left:\\
\RL{الحمد لله رب العالمين}\\
\vspace{10pt}\\
Here is some English (\RL{الانجليزية}) with Arabic mixed in.
\end{document}


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%5
%% Old updates (now outdated) that explain the .sty file

On January 26, 2010:
I went to http://www.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/ifi/bs/research/arab_e.html and downloaded "arab311.zip" which I then opened on my desktop.  I then went and looked through the files for the one that was called "arabictex.sty" and put that file in the folder where my text document was.  LEd kept asking for "arabictext.sty" so I changed the name ("arabictex.sty --> "arabictext.sty") and then ran a file with the following header.  The examples and the letters can be found at http://129.69.218.213/arabtex/html/arabdoc.pdf.

Update on Nov 4, 2010
I was having trouble with some of the links where I found documentation before.  The Arabtex documentation is now available at:
http://tug.org/texlive/Contents/live/texmf-dist/doc/latex/arabtex/arabtex-doc.pdf
I've included that version of the documentation here so I don't have to go hunting for the letters again.
The package now appears to be on CTAN:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/language/arabic/arabtex/
That's not where I got it from or how I made it work, but it will probably work better from the official source.

