|
Herebelow, you can find various other softwares and tools developed by various other selfless individuals and also commercial enterprises to aid in Indic computing (i.e. computing in Indian languages like Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi, Gujarati, etc.). You can also read my short or detailed comments/reviews on few of the softwares. In this connection, kindly please read spread.html to see what best you can do to spread the news of Azhagi and all softwares of its kind, for the benefit of the global society. I take this opportunity to offer my very sincere and utmost appreciation and gratitude to all developers of beneficial softwares and people who serve humanity in general. |
Azhagi Downloads Azhagi-Setup.exe Azhagi-Setup.zip Operating Modes easy.azhagi.com |
Azhagi+ Downloads Azhagi+ Setup.exe Azhagi+ Portable.zip Operating Modes plus.azhagi.com |
Tamil softwares and tools
My sincere appreciation to all the developers of the Tamil/Indic softwares/tools mentioned in the above lists. And, thanks to the editors of the abovementioned websites who have compiled such lists and hosted them for the benefit of all.
Dictionaries - English to Tamil and Tamil to English
- EU Dict's English to Tamil and Tamil to English dictionaries. Best of the lot, in my assessment. These are such exhaustive dictionaries that for those who want "MORE", these would prove absolutely amazing. One can search on compound terms too (for e.g. direct access processing). Other features include display of 'Recent Searches', 'Alphabetic list', 'Related words in drop-down, as you type', etc. Please do check out the 'Next' link at the bottom of the table lists, if meanings and related words are more in number.
- Chennai University's English - Tamil Dictionary and Tamil Lexicon
- Anna University's Agaraadhi (Beta) - English to Tamil Dictionary | Tamil to English Dictionary
- Lifco's Tamil-Tamil-English Dictionary
- J. P. Fabricius's Tamil and English search dictionary
- Google's English to Tamil Dictionary | Tamil to English Dictionary
- Wiktionary English to Tamil Dictionary | Tamil to English Dictionary | Primary Index
Translators - English to Tamil and Tamil to English
- Googles' English - Tamil Translator
- Googles' Tamil - English Translator
a) The English-Tamil and Tamil-English translators are in Alpha stage (as on 7-7-11). So, way to go before they prove perfect to your needs.
b) Apart from Tamil, Google's translators are available for Hindi, Telugu and many other world languages also.
Thanks a ton to all those in Google involved in bringing out the translation modules.
Free Tamil Fonts Converters
- As far as Azhagi is concerned, it can do Unicode to Tscii, Tscii to Unicode and Tscii to TAB conversions. These converters are in-built into Azhagi.
- For 'Tscii to Unicode' and 'Unicode to Tscii' conversion, please click on 'File->Fonts Converter' and choose the appropriate ones from 'From' and 'To' list boxes. To paste Tscii or Unicode text into the upper box, copy the text from the source document and please press 'Ctrl+V' in the upper box. The text will appear in the upper box. And thereafter, you can press the 'Convert' button to get the conversion effected.
- Azhagi also has a sophisticated BULK converter for 'Tscii to Unicode' conversion. The bulk converter can convert multiple Tscii files (say 100s) into Unicode in quick time. To utilise this bulk converter, click on 'File->Convert to Unicode->Choose conversion mode before converting' and then click on 'Convert multiple files (Batch Process)'.
- For 'Tscii to TAB' conversion, click on 'Tools->Convert Tamil text to TAB encoding'.
- For 'Tscii to Unicode' and 'Unicode to Tscii' conversion, please click on 'File->Fonts Converter' and choose the appropriate ones from 'From' and 'To' list boxes. To paste Tscii or Unicode text into the upper box, copy the text from the source document and please press 'Ctrl+V' in the upper box. The text will appear in the upper box. And thereafter, you can press the 'Convert' button to get the conversion effected.
- Click here to reach a section below in this same page wherein I have listed some softwares of great use. Some of them do 'tamil fonts conversion' - like Suratha, Higopi, NHM, Elcot and Sarma's products. You can choose the one which meets your requirements.
- Thanks to the developers of the above-cited Tamil fonts converters.
Free Multi-language Fonts Converter Thanks a lot to Webdunia for this 'fantastic' multi-language fonts converter. Lots of fonts are covered esp. for Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and Kannada. Please note however that though many fonts are covered under the input source font, only Unicode text can be obtained as the converted output.
Free inter-language 'transliteration' converters
- higopi.com/ucedit/Multi.html
A comprehensive converter providing conversion between any of these languages - Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu. - transliterator.blogspot.com
A neat tool to convert from various Indian languages (Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Oriya, Gujarati, Punjabi, etc.) into Tamil. - software.nhm.in/products/t12r
A firefox addon, as such, to transliterate web page contents between following scripts - Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Diacritic, Roman. - http://baraha.com
An indic transliteration conversion facility is available for use (vide 'Baraha Pad') if you download and install 'Baraha' software.
Free Tamil Fonts - 100s of them - in various encodings
- Click here to get more free Tamil fonts - 100s of them - in Tscii, Unicode, TAB, TAM and various other font encodings.
Free Unicode Indic Fonts - 100s of them
- Click here to get more free Indian language Unicode fonts - 100s of them.
Softwares and online tools for computing in Tamil and various other Indian languages
You can find most of the sites mentioned below having been already listed in one of the 2 comprehensive lists you find at the top of this page. However, I have highlighted them herebelow so that you don't miss out. - http://baraha.com
An 'Indian Languages' Word processor - Since 2000. Recently (since 2010 or so, if I am right), it became commercial. As a free software until then (for 10 years!), I am sure lakhs of people (multilingual) must have got benefitted from Baraha (a single man Sheshadrivasu's very noble contribution). It has support for braille printing, as a special future.
- http://thamizha.com/ekalappai-anjal
A free Tamil word processor. It has it's own Unicode text processing engine.
- http://www.higopi.com/tools
Friendly Gopi's free online Indian language transliterator, very useful firefox plugins for indic computing, transliteration scripts for integration in websites, and many other tools. You can save his transliterator (as a webpage - just like you normally save other webpages) and access it offline too.
- http://www.jaffnalibrary.com/tools/Unicode.htm
PonguTamil free online Tamil transliterator. It can be saved (as a webpage - just like you normally save other webpages) and accessed offline too.
- http://suratha.com/reader.htm
Suratha's free online Tamil fonts converter. It can be saved (as a webpage - just like you normally save other webpages) and accessed offline too.
- http://sarma.co.in, http://auw.sarma.co.in and http://tamil.sarma.co.in
Tamil word processor - with a large dictionary, Tamil spell checker, Tamil grammar checker!, 120 Tamil fonts converter, 18 different Tamil keyboard layouts and what not! This commercial application is loaded with features! Please read this related Microsoft BhashaIndia story on talented Mr.Ibrahim.
- http://software.nhm.in
A free Tamil (and other Indian languages) IME. It can enable Unicode settings automatically in your system, upon installation. NHM provides a separate Tamil fonts converter tool too. The same is available as an online service here
- PramukhIME
Yet another FREE Indic IME. Cute, quite small and portable. When I tested it, the keymappings were not perfect for Tamil and it was not user-friendly. But, for other languages, Azhagi user Mr.Koteswar (from AndhraPradesh) wrote that it is quite good except that the keymappings are very difficult to remember and have to be referred quite often.
- http://bhashaindia.com
Microsoft's portal - a one'stop center for all information and resources related to Indic computing
- http://ildc.in
Indian Language Data Centre - Free fonts and tools for various Indian languages
- http://www.elcot.in/tamilfonts_download_list.php
A free fonts converter tool from Elcot
- http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/software/utils/tconvert.php
An utility to convert ITrans, RIT and Adhawin files. Free.
- http://murasu.com
A Tamil word processor which works in Mac platform also. Helps input Tamil in mobiles, ipods and similar devices too.
- Shakti Office
A Tamil and Hindi word processor.
- http://quillpad.com
A free-form online transliterator for all major Indian languages. As far as Tamil is concerned, I found it extremely intelligent and very easy while typing certain words but could not type certain other words at all. Like Google, Quillpad also provides widgets (both free and commercial) for integrating it's transliterator into any website. Quillpadmobile.in - provides you a tool to help you type (vide transliteration) in Hindi in mobile phones. It is reported that support for other Indian languages also will be provided by it's developers very soon. To know more about Quillpad's developer and innovator Mr.Ram Prakash, click here
- http://google.com/transliterate/indic
Google's free online transliterator for various Indian languages. As far as I see it, it's based on a transliteration dictionary, fundamentally, and hence very user-friendly and fast. But, personally, as of now, I find this system very fast/friendly for typing out a few lines, but for large amounts of texts, editing (to correct mistakes in texts already typed out) becomes quite tedious. Nevertheless, for typing out a few sentences (as is the need for many in this busy world, for quick chats and email messages) online, it's great and can prove to be an extremely effective/handy tool. In the future, I expect/wish this tool to become 100% easy during editing also, and become more versatile (available for use in all applications in all OSes) so that many more get to benefit from this user-friendly tool.
N.B.:
- As of Aug 2009, SAT mode has been introduced in Azhagi, which is akin to Google's Indic Transliteration. For details, please see http://azhagi.com/sath.html.
- As of Jan 18 2010, I see that Google has extended its free online transliteration service to offline mode too. i.e. One can download (for free) and use google's transliterator to type directly in Tamil (and several other languages) in ANY Windows application. That's nice. I downloaded and tried out the IME(input method editor) immediately and it's excellent. The editing process is also less tedious than it was earlier (when tested with the online version). In fact, I see that Microsoft also has come out with a similar tool (free and advertised as beta) and it's here. I tried the same just a while ago and it is very good for typing. Compared to Google, it gives less Tamil equivalents for a word typed but seems to be more intelligent in choosing the best word amongst alternatives sometimes; the editing process is more tedious than that of google but I am sure this area will be improved/perfected in versions to come. Also, as newbies and other users get used to these "free-form transliterators", they may perhaps easily learn to type their original texts itself without mistakes and hence their later editing/correction needs might be less. Well, all said and done, the bottom-line is that it augurs well to see that both established companies Google and Microsoft have now come out with a transliterator, at last, that works in all applications, that too with many language options. This will spread the awareness of language transliterators amongst computer users at a mighty rapid pace and that's a heartening and great development indeed, benefitting the global society! I hope now that language translators, voice recognition softwares, etc. also will get developed sooner than later. In this context, please read inno.html
- As of Aug 2009, SAT mode has been introduced in Azhagi, which is akin to Google's Indic Transliteration. For details, please see http://azhagi.com/sath.html.
I take this opportunity to offer my sincere appreciation to all the developers of softwares/tools for computing in various Indian languages.
SMS in Tamil | Mobile Computing in Indian Languages
[Note: I have not personally tried out any of the products listed below, myself. I am just providing information herein about various products. That is all to it. So, it is up to you to decide on whether to download/use a particular product or not.]
- How to download the ucscSellinam application to your phone
- Requirements to use the ucscSellinam Tamil SMS application
- Mobile phone compatibility matrix
Great many thanks to the developers of the above softwares.
'Learn Tamil' Tools
- Learn Tamil - Lots of downloadable documents
- Learning/Teaching aids and research topics
- Learn Tamil - through English
'Learn Tamil' Blog
- http://learning-tamil.blogspot.com
- http://learning-tamil.blogspot.com/2009/10/favorite-tamil-resources.html
'Learn English through Tamil'
One has to profusely thank the author of 'aangilam' blog for his unique and very useful service.
'Learn HTML in Tamil'
- There are lots of HTML tutorials in English. But, the tutorial available here in ezilnila.com is in Tamil (in 7 lucid parts) and moreover, it teaches HTML in a style (akin to teaching 'a, b, c, d' to children) which any layman/laywoman can easily understand and start creating html pages within minutes.
'Thirukkural' online
There might be many online sites available offering Thirukkurals with their meanings but Gokulnath's site (a very neat design and presentation) is definitely worth seeing, esp. for it's very versatile and well thought-out 'search' functionality.
'Learn Grantha'
- Grantha Tutor - A lucid and easy Grantha tutor. Probably a unique effort. Thanks to energetic young man, Sri.Vinod Rajan.
'Text to Speech' Softwares
Immense thanks should go to the above for the initiative taken in a 'special' area. The value of the above tools for educational presentations (and kind) and especially their help for the sight-impaired is immeasurable. Collectively, these tools perform text-to-speech conversion for Tamil, Hindi, Kannada and several other world languages.
Out of the above three, I found the iisc (first in the list) tool to be very good (with respect to nativity and understandability) and thanks for those who sponsor(ed) the iisc project. For my personal experience with the above softwares, kindly visit http://azhagi.com/tts.html. My observations/notes might be of help to you or some other needy person whom you know. Regarding Azhagi's initiative in Tamil 'Text 2 Speech', since 2001, please see http://azhagi.com/sath.html#tts.
Tamil OCR
As far as I know (based on users' feedback), there is no 100% successful Tamil OCR. Still, you can try out the following, if you wish to. Please note that I myself have not tried any of them so far.
- http://gtamilocr.sourceforge.net (or) http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtamilocr
- http://www.ildc.in/tamil/Gist/htm/ocr_spell.htm and https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mintamil/Pnwx6lyEZjc
In the above context, please read my message posted in 'Azhagi' google and yahoo group on Jul 31 2009 and Aug 1 2009 resp.
Group message sources:
http://groups.google.com/group/azhagi/browse_thread/thread/3d6229f5f0447ba5
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/azhagi/message/489
Dear Friends,
Warm greetings!
As and when your time/interest permits, kindly please have a look at http://azhagi.com/indic.html. I have done whatever best possible by me (as of now) for spreading awareness of ALL softwares/tools available for computing in Tamil and other Indian languages, with links to all of them. This is apart from informing about them to others through personal mails, phone calls, etc. too, as ever.
It's my thanks-giving and 'awareness-spreading' page for ALL available softwares/tools (both commercial and non-commercial) so that many more get to benefit by using these softwares/tools, since, in my past 10 years' experience, I have seen that 1000s and 1000s are not yet aware of such softwares/tools, though they are in need of the same.
A link ( Other Softwares | Tools ) for the aforesaid 'indic.html' page has been given at the top right of www.azhagi.com website and also from within Azhagi software itself. i.e. every visitor of azhagi.com or user of 'azhagi' software has ready access to all softwares/tools available for Indian language computing.
I have written/mentioned about the abovesaid 'indic.html' page in some of my earlier mails also. But, not sure whether everybody would have read them. Also, new members perhaps may not have read those mails. Hence, I have written again. Thanks, for sparing your valuable time.
If possible and if your time/interest permits, kindly spread the news of the abovementioned softwares/tools in the best way possible for you...
With sincere prayers for the welfare of all beings...
Love all Serve all
Kind Regards
B.Viswanathan, Author (Azhagi - www.azhagi.com)
Please note:
- Out of goodwill, I have listed above information about the 'softwares'* developed by other entities. Otherwise, whether any of the above 'softwares' is still free or not (OR) how any of the above 'softwares' exactly function (OR) whether the above 'softwares' function accurately or error-free, etc. etc. is under the control of the respective authors only. So, use of any of the above 'softwares' is entirely upto your discretion.
(*) 'softwares' means ALL of the 'softwares/tools/utilities/etc.' (developed by other entities), which I have listed above in this page.
- In 2004, in an interview given to a webzine, I had this to say. User requests for a Tamil translator or a Voice recognition software or Azhagi in Linux/MAC or ... or ... have been existing ever since 2000 itself. For those users to get an understanding on what it takes to develop these softwares and also as a sort of a detailed sequel to what I had opined in 2004, I compiled inno.html. If interested, you may read it.
