CONTENTS:

Introduction
1. Non-standard Implementation of Indic and other Scripts
Implementation through fonts
How to install a font under Microsoft Windows
Implementation through overlaying software and font
Implementation of Arabic script based languages
Deficiencies of these approaches

2. Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII)
The BIS ISCII standard
ISCII to Unicode conversion and vice versa
Transliterating from one Indic Unicode to another via ISCII
Typing in ISCII
Webpage design in ISCII
Deficiencies of ISCII

3. Installing Languages in Microsoft Windows
Installing Indic/Arabic/East Asian etc languages
Installing keyboard layouts/Input Method Editors (IMEs)
Selecting default input language
Language bar settings
Changing input language
Changing keyboard layout/IME
Selecting keyboard layout under Linux
Font insufficient to view text in complex script
Obtaining Unicode fonts

4. Typing in Indic and other Languages
A few general ideas
Typing in European languages
Typing in Indic languages
“Delete” versus “backspace” in Indic scripts
Searching in Indic script languages
Indic full stop sign (single/double danda/daari etc)
Variant characters in Devanagari
Typing Vedic hymns
ISCII versus Unicode Inscript keyboard layouts
Phonetic/transliteration keyboard layout/IME
Typing in Arabic script
Typing in mixed languages
Number of keystrokes versus number of characters inputted

5. Settings Specific to Language and Region Time zone
Default input language
Regional options
Number format options
Currency format options
Date format options
Time format options

6. Language-specific Features of Microsoft Office
Language settings in Microsoft Office
Language of text
Certain features of Microsoft Word
Complex script tab
Certain features of Microsoft Excel
Certain features of Microsoft Access
Certain features of Microsoft FrontPage
OpenOffice
Multilingual sorting

7. Indic and other Languages Everywhere
Password in languages
Webpage in right-to-left languages
Webpage and Internet search in Indic and other languages
URL and e-mail ID in Indic scripts
File, folder and e-mail in Indic and other languages

8. Indic Version of Microsoft Windows and Office
Non-English versions of Microsoft Windows
Installing language interface packs in Microsoft Windows
The feel of Microsoft Windows in Indian languages
Primary language under Linux
Language interface for Microsoft Office 2003

9. Thesaurus, Dictionary and Translation
Thesaurus in languages
Dictionary in languages
Offline translation
Online translation

Annexures
A. Hexadecimal Number System
B. ISCII Codes for Indic Languages
C. Languages and Scripts Supported by Microsoft Windows
D. Unicode Character Set of Select Languages
E. Ready Reference for Typist
F. Inscript Keyboard Layout
G. Building Customized Keyboard Layout
Annexures

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EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:

An Introduction
Information technology has facilitated and accelerated the pace of globalization. It has bridged the gap between the people, and made distance irrelevant. Interestingly, the same information technology is also facilitating localization. Until a few decades ago, one could write only in English with one’s computer. ASCII was the popular standard code. One could grudge at not being able to work in one’s language in computer—but there was nothing that could be done about it. It was one-size/language-fits-all situation.

The increasing popularization of computers the world over has encouraged the development of software environments in local languages. Today, computers process texts not just in English, but in most other languages of the world. More and more languages are being added to the repertoire. For example, texts in the following categories of languages can be used in computer:

1. European languages such as English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, and Greek etc,
2. East Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean etc,
3. Right to left languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Divehi/Maldivian, Kharoshthi (script), Persian, Urdu, Kashmiri(Arabic), and Sindhi(Arabic) etc,
4. Indic languages of Brahmi family and similar languages such as Hindi, Sanskrit, Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, Gujarati, Nepali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Sinhalese, Myanmarese, Tibetan, Bodo, Romani and Thai etc,
5. Languages written in a different script: Mizo and Vietnamese languages in Latin script etc.

It is worth noting that many languages have more than one variant. For example, British and American are the two major flavors of English language, and ‘Spain’ and ‘Latin America’ are that of Spanish language.

While the handwritten forms of most languages are cursive, for the purpose of text processing in computer, the following scripts are not treated as cursive: Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Divehi etc. Letters in cursive or complex scripts form different ligatures depending on the context. Indic and Arabic scripts are complex scripts. The following scripts are complex scripts: Arabic, Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Sinhala, Burmese, Tibetan, Thai etc.

This book explains how to write electronically in a variety of languages, with special reference to Indic, Arabic and European languages. As a prerequisite, it is assumed that one is well conversant with typing in English languages in an office suite, one can fiddle with the control panel/control center and property settings of the operating system, and one is comfortable with menu bar, keyboard and mouse. Under these assumptions, the book goes on to explain the implementation of Indic and other languages.

This book describes three ways of implementation of languages and scripts :
i. Non-standard font method, with or without overlaying software,
ii. ISCII and similar standard methods having limited scope, and
iii. Unicode method.







Reviews about the book:

Times of India, March 23, 07

A housewife wants Bangladeshi recipe written in Bengali. A poet wants to key in his thoughts in Hindi. A Tibetan monk wants to design a website in his language. So far there aren’t many options available. This book is meant for computer users who want to personalize their browsing experience by having computers speak their languages. It informs users of local language availability in computers. You can search the Internet in Indian languages and the text will no longer appear nonsensical and full of unintelligible characters like @#$%^&*!

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