Tibetan Unicode Installation

This article describes how to install the required software in order to be able to display and edit texts encoded in Tibetan Unicode

Overview

In order to be able to view and edit Tibetan texts encoded in Tibetan Unicode you need three components:

• A operating system that supports displaying complex scripts.
• Tibetan Fonts in Unicode format
• A Tibetan Input Method

One of the major advantages of Unicode is that Unicode applications do not need to understand the rules how to create glyphs for a given language. The actual knowhow how to create Tibetan stacks resides within the unicode font and the complex script support of the operating system.

Once all three components above are available, standard Unicode applications can be used to create, edit and display Tibetan texts.

A particularly useful Unicode application is OpenOffice. OpenOffice 2 is available for Windows, Linux and Mac (see http://www.neooffice.org and comments below) so Unicode documents created with OpenOffice can efficiently be shared across platforms.

Unicode enabling Windows XP

Enabling complex script support

Microsoft Windows XP supports complex scripts, the feature to correctly display Tibetan stacks, only with Microsoft Office 2003 SP1 and later. However it is possible to install support for Tibetan complex scripts for all applications (e.g. Web browsers and OpenOffice).

An excellent description how to update Windows XP can be found at THDL.

Additional information can be found here: [1]

Installing Unicode fonts

Simply install one of the Unicode Tibetan Fonts.

A good start is Tibetan Machine Uni.

Installing a Tibetan input method

Again, THDL gives a comprehensive overview on different existing [Tibetan Input Methods].

A good start is Keyman. Tavultesoft offers a version that is free for home use.

A number of different keyboards including a Wylie keyboard are available from Tibetan Portal, download Keyman keyboards.

Unicode enabling Windows Vista

No software needs to be installed: Windows Vista already contains all three required components: an input method (see Control Panel / Regional and Language settings for a Tibetan keyboard), support to display Tibetan script and a Tibetan font, Microsoft Himalaya.

In addition you might want to install additional Tibetan Fonts (all existing Unicode fonts seem to work well) or an alternative Tibetan Input Method.

You can directly start using Notepad, OpenOffice or the latest Microsoft Office version to create Tibetan documents in standard Unicode encoding.

Unicode enabling Linux

Enabling complex script support

If you use a recent version of Gnome, all applications that support Pango, correctly display Tibetan complex script.