How to effect Unicode conversions?

· Under Azhagi's 'File' menu, you can click on 'Fonts Converter' and avail a plain-text converter for converting from both Tscii to Unicode and from Unicode to Tscii.

· Once the converter is started, choose the appropriate encoding 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. Once the conversion is over, press 'Ctrl+A' to select the full text in the lower box and press 'Ctrl+C' to copy the text so that you can paste it anywhere else.

· Please note that if Tamil texts you wish to convert are in fonts like SaiIndira, SaiSai, SaiEmbed, etc., you have to choose 'Tscii' in the 'From' box. If the texts to be converted are in fonts like Latha, Arial Unicode MS, etc., you have to choose 'Unicode' in the 'From' box.

· To very quickly convert your text, just click the 'Convert text below to Unicode' button or click on 'File ->Convert to Unicode ->Convert immediately' and see your converted text immediately in your favorite browser (e.g. Google chrome). If you need more options while converting, read ahead.

· 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 (say 'Internet Explorer') as an html page.

· You can copy/paste this Unicode text to wherever you wish to - Blog, Gmail, Blog, Skype, Facebook, MS-Word, etc.

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

· Start 'Azhagi' and click on 'File -> Convert to Unicode -> Choose conversion mode before converting' to open Azhagi's converter tool. Note that the converter converts text which is originally in Tscii Tamil only and not any other encoding. Once you get your Tscii text converted to Unicode, you can copy/paste this Unicode text to wherever you wish to - Blog, Gmail, MS-Word, Skype, Facebook, etc.

· Azhagi's 'Unicode converter' can directly read an html file (or .js or .txt or any other file you specify) and convert it into its unicode equivalent. You use the 'Choose HTML file' and 'Convert HTML file' to effect this conversion. To view the contents of the loaded html file, click the check box next to the file name display area. If the Tamil content of the html file appears as junk in the display, click on 'Refresh text area' to rectify it.

· You may try converting the sample files (azUniSample1.html and azUniSample2.html) which you may find in 'C:\Program Files\Azhagi\azDocs\uniConverters' directory. You may also find the converted Unicode files (with all formatting intact) as azUniSample1-utf8.html , azUniSample1-utf16.html , azUniSample2-utf8.html and azUniSample2-utf16.html .

· Azhagi's 'unicode converter' also provides a text area to hold the Tscii Tamil text - as Plain text or HTML text. As you click the appropriate 'Convert' button ('Plain text' or 'HTML text), the text in the text area is converted to Unicode and presented to you as an HTML file (you can choose the file name), for quick and easy information interchange.

· You can copy Tscii Tamil text (non-html) from any external source (say an MS-Word document) and paste it in the text area. You can also open an html file, copy the entire html content and paste it in the text area.

Tip: While pasting from external source, if the pasted Tamil text appears as junk, click on 'Refresh text area' to get it displayed in Tamil.

· You can type any new Tamil text in the text area using Azhagi's 'direct typing' mode. You can also type your text in html format with html tags.

Tip: When you type just plain Tamil text, always click on 'Plain Text' button to effect conversion. When you type your text in html format, always click on 'HTML Text' button to effect conversion. The results might be unpredictable if you do not follow this instruction.

· Azhagi can also effect 'Batch processing' - i.e. convert multiple html files (*.html or *.js or *.txt or *.*) at the same time. Read this help topic for full instructions.

· Once you have generated Unicode Tamil text using Azhagi's Unicode convertors, you can copy/paste the Unicode Tamil text to any external application/window like WordPad, Outlook Express, Blogs, Gmail, Skype, Facebook, Online groups (like http://groups.google.com/group/azhagi), etc.

· If the pasted text does not appear correctly in certain applications like MS-Word, Notepad etc., then it almost invariably means that your operating system is WinXP and that Unicode might have to be enabled fully.