Friday, November 24, 2006

For Unicode Sanskrit, Try OpenOffice

Doing Unicode Sanskrit in OS X apps like TextEdit or Pages faces two problems: You are restricted to the one font Devanagari MT, and this font cannot do some conjunct forms or handle the stress marks for Vedic texts correctly. My tests indicate that the app OpenOffice/X11 (not OpenOffice 3) can use Windows fonts to display correct Devanagari and some of these, like Sanskrit 2003, will position stress marks as they should be and also create proper conjuncts. A screenshot of the first line of the Rig Veda showing the stress marks can be found here.

24 comments:

John Hughes said...

I have also been disappointed with Apple's support of the font Devanagari MT. To my dismay I found that under Tiger a number of complex characters, though existing in the font showing, are simply not available for keyboard entry. For example using the Qwerty keyboard with Devanagari MT typing the transliterated sarvaM the v is replaced by a box indicating the character is not available. After much stress I did get someone at Apple to acknowledge the problem. They said, "Yes, we see the problem." When will it be fixed? Apple says, "We are not sure, keep checking your systems updates for a correction." Eight months later and still no fix. To keep our sanity and our work flow going we also switched to OpenOffice. The font we have been using is the default font on the Macintosh side, Lucida Sans. I see that you were able to install Sanskrit 2003 and get it to work with the Macintosh keyboard interface. This is wonderful news to us. We have not been able to get any fonts except Lucida Sans to work with the Macintosh Devanagari keyboard interface in OpenOffice. Any suggestions or help you can give us for installing Sanskrit 2003 in OpenOffice will be greatly appreciated.

John Hughes said...

I have also been disappointed with Apple's support of the font Devanagari MT. To my dismay I found that under Tiger a number of complex characters, though existing in the font showing, are simply not available for keyboard entry. For example using the Qwerty keyboard with Devanagari MT typing the transliterated sarvaM the v is replaced by a box indicating the character is not available. After much stress I did get someone at Apple to acknowledge the problem. They said, "Yes, we see the problem." When will it be fixed? Apple says, "We are not sure, keep checking your systems updates for a correction." Eight months later and still no fix. To keep our sanity and our work flow going we also switched to OpenOffice. The font we have been using is the default font on the Macintosh side, Lucida Sans. I see that you were able to install Sanskrit 2003 and get it to work with the Macintosh keyboard interface. This is wonderful news to us. We have not been able to get any fonts except Lucida Sans to work with the Macintosh Devanagari keyboard interface in OpenOffice. Any suggestions or help you can give us for installing Sanskrit 2003 in OpenOffice will be greatly appreciated.

Tom Gewecke said...

Lucida Sans doesn't contain Devanagari, so some other font is being used. You should be able to use any font from a list like this one

http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Devanagari.html

By just putting them in Home/Library/Fonts. OpenOffice should use all fonts located there.

By the way, I think the bug you mention may not be present in Panther and also not in the app Pages, if that is of any help.

Write me if further questions: tom at bluesky dot org

Unknown said...

Hi, I would like to know Devanagarii MT would work in iPod touch & iPhone or not before buying. If anyone have any info or experience pls. share & let me know.
Thanks
gkdave@gmail.com

Tom Gewecke said...

No, unfortunately neither the iPhone nor the iPod touch can do any complex script, including Devanagari, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Vietnamese, etc.

Ishaan said...

I've downloaded OpenOffice Aqua on my Mac (OSX 10.5) along with the Sanskrit 2003 ttf file (which is in Library/Fonts). While I open a Text doc in OpenOffice, and change the font to Sanskrit 2003, I cannot figure out how to type the Devanagari characters available in this font. (Specifically, I get a "q" when I type letter "q" on my keyboard - this must be due to the fact that a certain Latin char font is also made available in Sanskrit 2003, along with the usual Devanagari and Sanskrit conjunct characters). How do I configure my Mac? Thanks in advance.

Tom Gewecke said...

Sanjay -- two things: 1) This article talks about OpenOffice/X11. OpenOffice Aqua is not the same and will probably not work with the Sanskrit 2003 font. 2) To type any language in OS X you must activate a keyboard layout, not just change the font. To do that you go to system prefs/international/input menu and check the box for Devanagari, plus the box for Show Input Menu in Finder, then select Devanagari in the "flag" menu at the top right of the Finder, then type.

Deepak said...

I am using OS X 10.5.5 and Open Office 3.0.1. I am facing a weird problem. I was able to type using Devnagari MT without any problem. I created a document in devnagari font and was very happy about that. I could type all complicated words in Hindi and Marathi. Unfortunately, now when I open the file, I see all 'halant' words totally messed up.

However, this problem is not noticed in OS X applications like textedit. Again this behavior is very random and sometimes I am able to type without my words getting messed up.

Please let me know your views.

Tom Gewecke said...

Deepak -- It sounds like a different font is being used when you open the document. Select All and make sure the font is set to Devanagari MT.

OO3 is different than OO2 and I think can only use Devanagari MT, not Windows fonts.

Unknown said...

I am having a lot of trouble trying to create a devanagari script document in either windows 2004 for Mac or textedit. I am learning sanskrit, so I don't want my whole system to be in devanagari. I just want to be able to type the transliteration and have it appear as devanagari, so I can practice using the aksharas. I know it's probably quite elementary, but I've tried changing every setting, and I still get regular English output on TextEdit and Word. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Tom Gewecke said...

SOFugett -- Word can't do Devanagari. For other apps, you go to system prefs/international/input menu and check the box for Devanagari Qwerty, plus the box for Show Input Menu in Finder, then select Devanagari in the "flag" menu at the top right of the Finder, and type.

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/TypingDevanagari.html

Unknown said...

Following all the posts here, I downloaded Sanskrit 2003.ttf. However I double clicked it instead of copying it to /Library/fonts. In the Font Book window it opened up, I dragged the installed font to the "Windows Office Compatible" collection. Once I did this I was able to select Sanskrit 2003 in MS Word and type in Devanagari!
I'm on OSX Snow Leopard using MS Word 2008 for Mac. So perhaps this is old news:-)

Tom Gewecke said...

Sairam -- If MS Word for Mac can display Devanagari correctly, that is amazing news. Normally it will not have the letters in the correct order or show the mandatory ligatures (conjuncts), as shown in the Wrong item for Hindi in this page:

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/indicprobs.jpg

Anonymous said...

I've installed Sanskrit 2003 on my Mac, but I don't know how to insert the "r" maatra, as in the hindi word "karma," by using the keyboard. Would you know how to do this?

Many thanks,

Aashaa

Tom Gewecke said...

In Devanagari qwerty I think karma is k-r-f-m

intelligentwins said...

Dear Tom

i have windows 7, and have installed sanskrit 2003 and open office. but if i type in openoffice, sanskrit 2003 shows only english letters. please please help me.

Tom Gewecke said...

Intelligentwins --You can't type a different script by just changing the font. You must switch to a keyboard layout for Devanagari. You should be able to find out how to do that in Windows Help. Sorry I can't provide more details, this blog is for OS X, not Windows.

Shraddha said...

Hi there!

While I couldn't get Devanagari MT to work in Microsoft Word for Mac, I did get de Sanskrit 2003 font to work in Word for Mac after trying a lot!

Do the following:
- enable Devanagari & Devanagari QWERTY (and Keyboard & Character Viewer) through System Preferences
- download the Sanskrit 2003 font and install it (by double-clicking it and then clicking on 'install')
- move/copy the font to Windows compatible fonts

Now, when you switch your keyboard to Devanagari or Devanagari QWERTY, then you can use the Sanskrit 2003 font in Word for Mac.

One thing I noticed, is that Word for Mac doesn't get the ligatures/conjuncts right when your keyboard is set on Devanagari QWERTY, but they do work properly when your keyboard is set on just Devanagari. When working with your keyboard set on Devanagari, it takes a while to get used to where all the letters are on your keyboard, because then they're not on the most logical places. But you can always keep the Keyboard Viewer on while typing Hindi letters, so it's not that much of a big deal!

Hope this can help anyone who's trying to get a Devanagari font to work in Microsoft Word for Mac. :)

Tom Gewecke said...

Shradda -- Thanks! please send me a screenshot of correct devanagari on Word for Mac, as I am surprised you have gotten it to work. In particular I would like to see the results of typing "hindi" in the correct Unicode fashion via the non-qwerty keyboard -- ufvdor. (tom at bluesky dot org)

Sanskrit Library Director said...

I'm very interested in Shraddha's comment of 26 June 2011 that she got Sanskrit 2003 to display conjuncts properly in MWWord. I can't in MWWord for Mac 2011 Version 14.0.0 (100825). Some conjuncts do work like k.s mr. But risers and descenders cause problems with the following characters which get shifted too far left. In maidaan for instance, the aan gets written over the d. In muulam, the final m is written over the l. I'd be interested if there's a solution.

Swami Nikhilanand said...

I have a MacBook Air which has the OS X Lion operating system. I am trying to type in Sanskrit. I read the above post about using OpenOffice/X11 with Sanskrit 2003, and not Aqua. I am on the Open Office website and it looks like it will only let me download Aqua. I downloaded Aqua (as well as the Sanskrit 2003 font) and activated the Devnagari keyboard from system preferences. As you had predicted, it doesn't work: it's just typing in English as usual. It's been almost 3 years since your post about Aqua not working. Have any other ways of doing it opened up since then?

Tom Gewecke said...

Swami -- this post is really from 6 years ago. It would be best to start over. You should certainly try using just the standard fonts and apps that come with Lion. If they don't work, try Sanskrit 2003 with TextEdit. See

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2011/10/os-x-107-lion-can-now-use-windows-indic.html

Swami Nikhilanand said...

Thanks for the response Tom. Having turned on both the Devanagari and Devanagari - QWERTY input sources from the Language & Text system preferences menu, and checked the "show input menu in menu bar" box, I opened TextEdit and tried 3 different fonts: the two that come with MacBook Air (Devanagari MT and Devanagari Sangam MN) and the Sanskrit 2003 font. In all three cases, it continued to write in English. I must still be missing a step somewhere.

Tom Gewecke said...

Swami -- Did you select Devanagari or Devanagari Qwerty in the "flag" menu at the top right of the screen? What language you type is determined by the active keyboard layout, not the font.