The most significant feature was the native integration of the "Middle Eastern" text engine. Users could finally switch the "Composer" engine in the Paragraph panel. This allowed for:
Some distributors in Dubai (e.g., old stock at Jumbo or FDC) and India still hold physical boxed copies (DVD + Serial).
Before diving into the "new" aspect, we must understand the artifact. adobe illustratorcs6me middle east version new
Adobe Illustrator CS6 (Creative Suite 6) was released in 2012. The standard version was a powerhouse of vector graphics, but it failed miserably when handling Arabic, Persian, or Hebrew text. Letters would appear disjointed, reversed, or completely broken.
Enter the Middle East Edition (ME) .
The ME version is a regionalized fork of Illustrator CS6 equipped with a special "Adobe Middle East Composer." This composer allows for:
While Creative Cloud eventually integrated these features (version 2017 onwards), the CS6 ME version remains legendary for its stability and lack of subscription bloat. The most significant feature was the native integration
While the text engine was the headline feature for the ME market, the underlying architecture of Illustrator CS6 (the Mercury Performance System) was equally vital for Middle Eastern users.
The Glyphs panel in the ME version recognizes Unicode 6.0+ Arabic fonts. You can insert alternate glyphs, initial/medial/final forms, and ligatures (like Lam-Alef) with a single click. If you manage to get your hands on
Unlike some cracked versions floating on torrent sites, a legitimate "new" CS6 ME handles gradients and transparency flattening for print without crashing.
If you manage to get your hands on a new copy, here is exactly what you are getting that the standard US/Europe version lacks: