Unicode - Enabling it in Windows XP/2K. Unicode Input in all Windows applications. Unicode Power

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Enabling Unicode in your System (Windows XP or Windows 2K)

Related topics (in this same page):
1. How to effect 'Direct Unicode Tamil Input' in ALL Windows applications?
2. How to effect Unicode Conversion?
3. What are the immense benefits of Unicode?
4. What is Unicode all about?
5. How to effect Non-Unicode (Tscii) Input in all Windows applications?

Enabling Unicode in Windows XP (Windows XP CD may be required for the same)

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

In 'Supplemental language support', see whether "Install files for complex script and right to left languages (including thai)" is kept ticked.

If ticked, leave it as it is. If not ticked, tick it. It will start installing some required files and Windows XP CD may be required to complete the process.

You will have to restart the machine for the new setting to take effect.

See sample screen'snapshot below for better understanding.

Enabling Unicode in Windows 2000 (Windows 2000 CD may be required for the same)

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

Click on 'General' (from the list of tabs at the top)

You will see a list of languages under 'Language Settings for the system'. Scroll down the list. When you see 'Indic' see whether it is already ticked.

If ticked, leave it as it is. If not ticked, tick it. It will start installing some required files and Windows 2000 CD may be required to complete the process.

You will have to restart the machine for the new setting to take effect.

Related topics:

1. How to effect 'Direct Unicode Tamil Input' in ALL Windows applications?

If you have not yet enabled Unicode in your computer, enable it first by reading the instructions for the same at the very top of this page. Only thereafter, read the steps below.

Important Note: For MS-Word and Powerpoint alone, the procedure is different and also some extra settings are required to be effected before you commence 'Direct Unicode Typing' in them. Click here to know the same. If it is for any other application, read the steps below after ensuring that you have professional version of Azhagi because, Unicode input in external applications is possible only in [Professional] version of Azhagi.

Start Azhagi fully by clicking OK in the opening password screen.

Right click on Azhagi's tray icon (you may find it at the right bottom of your screen, usually near the date/time indicator) and tick 'Unicode Input'. Alternatively, you can click on Azhagi's 'Preferences' menu and then tick on 'Unicode Input'.

Start your external application, say Notepad. Press F10. Azhagi's tray icon will change color to red.

Start typing in English and you will see it appearing in Unicode Tamil.
[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. Apart from these, around 25 FREE Unicode Tamil fonts have been made available to the public by the GOI. For samples and details, see http://azhagi.com/sai/uniFonts1.pdf]

Press F10 again, to continue to type in English.
(See sample screen'snapshot below for better understanding)

If you wish to change your typing mode from 'Phonetic' to 'Tamil Typewriter' or 'Tamilnet99', click on 'Preferences->Keyboard Layout' and choose your preferred layout. Alternately, you can right click on the Azhagi icon in the system tray, move your mouse to 'Typing mode' and select the preferred layout.

Note: For MS-Word and Powerpoint, the procedure is different and also some extra settings are required to be effected before you commence 'Direct Unicode Typing' in them. Click here to know the same.

2. How to effect Unicode Conversion in Azhagi?

If you have not yet enabled Unicode in your computer, enable it first by reading the instructions for the same at the very top of this page. Only thereafter, read the steps below.

Type* out your Tamil text in Azhagi.

Click on 'File' menu of Azhagi.

Click on 'Convert to Unicode'.

In the 'Unicode Converter' screen that opens, click on the button 'Plain Text' and follow the instructions. In general, you will have to just press 'OK', 'Yes' and 'OK' in the three screens which follow one after the other.

Your Tamil text (in Tscii) will get converted to Unicode and show up in your browser as an html page.

You can copy/paste this Unicode text to wherever you wish to - say your Blog or Email client or Word processor.

(*) Instead of typing, you can also paste Tamil text (in Tscii encoding) from an external source on to the Tamil text area of Azhagi.

Note:
a) In [Basic] version of Azhagi, only the 'Plain Text' button will be effective.
b) In [Standard] version of Azhagi, all buttons will be effective except 'Convert Multiple Files'.
c) With the utilities available in Azhagi' unicode converter, you can convert not only Tamil text typed in Azhagi but also external Html/Text/JavaScript files (containing Tscii Tamil text).

3. What are the immense benefits of Unicode?

Apart from the facility to straightaway start typing in any application window without setting/changing font to any Tamil font (i.e. even if your current application font is set to an English font like Arial, you can still straightaway start typing in Unicode Tamil. The font for your Tamil text is automatically chosen and set by your Windows operating system. There is no need for you to select/set it in advance), there are other very powerful features of Unicode like 'Find & Replace in Tamil', 'Sorting in Tamil', 'File names in Tamil', 'Search in Tamil in google, yahoo!, ...' etc. Click here to get to know them in detail.

4. What is Unicode all about?

If you want FULL and comprehensive details on what is Unicode, why Unicode, what are its powerful advantages, what are the current issues with it etc., then click here.

5. How to effect Non-Unicode (Tscii) Input in all Windows applications?
To get to know how to effect Non-Unicode input in all Windows applications, click here.

Effecting UNICODE Tamil Input in Microsoft Word and Powerpoint
(Note: When using Azhagi to type in Unicode, while Office2002 and later versions support Unicode typing, Office2000 and earlier versions may not support)

If you are using Windows XP:
Step 1:

If you have not yet enabled Unicode in your computer, enable it first by reading the instructions for the same at the very top of this page. Only thereafter, read the steps below.

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 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 sample screen'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 sample screen'snapshot below for better understanding)

Step 3:

Click on 'Language Bar' button

Tick the checkbox titled 'Show the Language bar on the desktop' and click OK.

Click on 'Key Settings' button. The 'Advanced Key Settings' window will show up. Therein, under 'Key sequence' heading, you will find 'Left Alt+Shift' being the default hotkey to change the keyboard layout from one language to another. If you wish, you can click on 'Change Key Sequence' button to set/change the various hotkeys, to suit your convenience. We assume for the purpose of this document that you left the default hotkeys as they are.
(see sample screen'snapshot above for better understanding)

Click OK.

Click OK.

Step 4:
(Note: Unicode input in external applications is possible only in [Professional] version of Azhagi)

Start azhagi and click 'OK' in the opening password screen. 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.

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 sample screen'snapshot below for better understanding)

Note:

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.
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. Apart from these, around 25 FREE Unicode Tamil fonts have been made available to the public by the GOI. For samples and details, see http://azhagi.com/sai/uniFonts1.pdf

If you are using Windows 2000:
Step 1:

If you have not yet enabled Unicode in your computer, enable it first by reading the instructions for the same at the very top of this page. Only thereafter, read the steps below.

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 the listbox titled '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:
(Note: Unicode input in external applications is possible only in [Professional] version of Azhagi)

Start azhagi and click 'OK' in the opening password screen. 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.