In MS-Word and MS-Powerpoint

Top

How to type in Unicode in MS-Word and MS-Powerpoint?

Important Note :

Office 2000 and earlier versions may not support Unicode typing using Azhagi even after following these steps. You may have to upgrade to Office 2002 and later versions.

Windows Vista:

Unicode support for Indian languages is in-built into Vista and hence you need not do anything to enable any settings, as in the case of XP/2K (Nevertheless, always visit http://azhagi.com/uniset.html for latest instructions in this regard). You can straightaway start typing in Unicode in any application by following the steps below.

Steps:

· Start Azhagi.

· Right click the azhagi tray icon (at the right bottom corner of the screen) and keep 'Unicode Input' ticked.

· Open Ms-Word (Powerpoint).

· Press 'F10' and azhagi's tray icon (at right bottom corner of screen) will turn red, to indicate you are in 'Direct Typing' mode.

· Start typing in English in MS-Word (Powerpoint) and you will see it appearing in Unicode Tamil seamlessly. If it does not, then please follow instructions of Step2, Step3 and Step4 under 'Windows XP' below. Please look for the corresponding tabs/buttons of 'Regional and Language Options' in Win Vista.

Windows XP:

Without enabling Unicode fully, 'Direct Unicode Tamil Input' may still be possible in a few external applications like Wordpad, Outlook Express and Internet explorer (Email message windows, Blog windows, Online groups' typing windows, etc.). So, do please check it out. But, for other applications like MS-Word etc., Unicode might have to be enabled fully. Follow steps below for effecting the same.

Step 1 - Enabling Unicode:

Click here to know how to enable Unicode in your system. Proceed with the steps below only after enabling unicode.

Step 2:

· Click on "Start->Control Panel->(Date, Time, Language and Regional Options)->Regional and Language Options".

· Click on 'Languages' tab (next to 'Regional Options') at the top.

· Click on 'Details' button.

· Under 'Installed services' you will find your default Language/Keyboard layout selected - most often it will be EN and US.

· Now, click on 'Add' button.

· Click on the listbox titled 'Input language'. Scroll down or up the list to select 'Tamil'.

· Click on the listbox below it titled 'Keyboard layout/IME'. Scroll down or up the list to select 'US'.

(See snapshot below for better understanding)

· Click 'OK'.

· Under 'Installed services' you will now find two entries 'EN' and 'TA'. The sub-heading 'Keyboard' under TA should be showing just 'US'.

(see snapshot below for better understanding)

Step 3:

· Click on 'Language Bar' button.

· Tick the checkbox titled 'Show the Language bar on the desktop'.

· Click on 'Key Settings' button. The 'Advanced Key Settings' window will show up.

(See snapshot above [i.e. the snapshot at the end of Step 2] for better understanding)

· Therein, under 'Hot keys for input languages' heading, you will find 'Left Alt+Shift' being the default hotkey to 'switch between input languages'. If you wish, you can click on 'Change Key Sequence' button to set/change the various hotkeys, to suit your convenience. But, we suggest you do not change the 'Left Alt+Shift' hotkey to 'switch input languages' and also the 'Ctrl+Shift' hotkey to 'switch keyboard layouts', at any point of time. And we assume, for the purpose of this document, that you left the default hotkeys as they are.

· Click OK.

Step 4:

· Start Azhagi.

· Right click the azhagi tray icon (at the right bottom corner of the screen) and keep 'Unicode Input' ticked.

· Open Ms-Word (Powerpoint).

· See what's the language chosen in the language bar (a small bar floating on your desktop or stationed in your taskbar). It will be most probably EN, meaning English language. You can see 'English (U.S)' in the status bar of MS-Word (Powerpoint) too.

· Press 'Left Alt + Shift' and you will see the language in the language bar changing to TA (Tamil). You can see this change in the status bar of MS-Word (Powerpoint) too. The status bar will(SHOULD) show 'Tamil' now, in place of 'English (U.S)'. By 'status bar', we mean the bottom-most part of the MS-Word(Powerpoint) window. (It's possible to avoid this step of pressing 'Alt-Shift' if you use 'Arial Unicode MS' font. More details on it in footnote. Please read.)

· Press 'F10' and azhagi's tray icon (at right bottom corner of screen) will turn red, to indicate you are in 'Direct Typing' mode.

· Start typing in English in MS-Word (Powerpoint) and you will see it appearing in Unicode Tamil seamlessly. If it does not, then it means that you have not followed one of the steps above properly. Nothing else could be a reason.

(See snapshot below for better understanding)

Note:

· Latha is the font automatically chosen by Windows, whenever you type in Unicode. If you find a font by name 'Arial Unicode MS' in your system, you might use that too. With Arial Unicode MS, you may not need to press 'Alt-Shift' before starting your transliteration/typing process in MS-Word and thus it's a big advantage. i.e. you can just start MS-Word (PowerPoint), choose 'Arial Unicode MS' from the fonts list, press 'F10' and start typing/transliterating in Tamil straightaway. For your information 'Arial Unicode MS' font gets installed along with the FULL installation of Microsoft Office 2002 and above.

· Apart from the abovementioned MS-supplied unicode fonts, very many free Unicode Tamil fonts are available on the net (incl. around 25 FREE Unicode fonts made available to the public by the GOI). For details, see http://azhagi.com/freefonts.html.

· If you wish to change your typing mode from 'Phonetic' to 'Tamil Typewriter' or 'Tamilnet99', right click on Azhagi's tray icon, move your mouse to 'Typing mode' and select the preferred layout.

Windows 2000:

But, for other applications like MS-Word etc., Unicode might have to be enabled fully. Follow steps below for effecting the same.

Step 1 (Enabling Unicode):

Click here to know how to enable Unicode in your system. Proceed with the steps below only after enabling unicode.

Step 2:

· Click on 'Start->Settings->Control Panel->Regional Options'

· Click on 'Input locales' (from the list of tabs at the top)

· Under 'Installed input locales' you will find your default language/keyboard layout selected - most often it will be EN and US

· Now, click on 'Add' button

· Click on 'Input locale'. A list will appear. Scroll down or up the list to select 'Tamil'.

· Click on the listbox below it titled 'Keyboard layout/IME'. Scroll down or up the list to select 'US'.

· Click 'OK'

· Under 'Installed input locales' you will now find two entries EN and TA. Under 'Keyboard layout/IME' for 'TN', it should be showing 'US'.

Step 3:

· Tick the checkbox titled 'Enable indicator on taskbar'

· Under 'Hotkeys for input locales', you will find 'Left Alt + Shift' being the default hotkey to change keyboard layout from one language to another. If you wish, you can click on 'Change key Sequence' to set/change these hotkeys to suit your convenience. We assume for the purpose of this document that you left the default hotkey as it is.

· Click OK.

Step 4:

· Start Azhagi. Right click the azhagi tray icon (at the right bottom corner of the screen) and keep 'Unicode Input' ticked.

· Open Ms-Word (Powerpoint)

· Press 'F10' and azhagi's tray icon (at right bottom corner of screen) will turn red, to indicate you are in 'Direct Typing' mode.

· If you wish to change your typing mode from 'Phonetic' to 'Tamil Typewriter' or 'Tamilnet99', right click on Azhagi's tray icon, move your mouse to 'Typing mode' and select the preferred layout.

Note : If the above steps do not work out in Win2000, then switch over to WinXP and above!

Windows 98/ME:

As of now, in Win98/ME, you cannot type in Unicode in any external application, using Azhagi. You can type in Unicode, only from within Azhagi. Click here to know how.

Document version 6.6