What was the original format of the original document?
And by format I mean, .doc, .html, .db (docbook-xml or sgml), .xml (which DTD), .sgml (which dtd)

And was the original format of the translated document?

I am asking, because I think the translation should always be in the same format as the original document, only if this format doesn't have arabic support, or the translator prefer a better format then he can write in it.
But I doubt this is a better format, there is right to left issues with this post, I am not sure on what to blame this except the format
It is widely recommend that documents be written according to a popular xml dtd, specialized in documents, docbook being the most popular I think it can be a wise choice
There is also linuxdoc, debiandoc, and tei
An Xml doc is not human readable, but many tools are availble to translate documents written in popular dtds to readable formats like html(throught a browser), pdf, ps, rtf and maybe more