[Buddha-l] Tibetan Input (was: OOo)

[Christopher Fynn]

Margaret Gouin wrote:

> Chris, this is very encouraging because when I first looked at OOo some
> time ago it had no such support. What input method do you use for Tibetan
> (and Chinese)?
> Many thanks for your help!
> 
> On Fri, April 27, 2007 12:45 pm, Christopher Fynn wrote:
>> OpenOffice.org is very good with Tibetan
> <snipped>

OOo uses any Unicode input / keyboard method available on the system.
To enable support for Tibetan in OpenOffice.org  see:
<http://www.btinternet.com/~c.fynn/tibetan/openoffice/OpenOffice4TibetanScript.html> 
or
<https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/access/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/openoffice%20writer.html>

For Chinese you also have to Enable for Asian Lanfuages" under Tools - Options - 
Language Settings - Languages…  and set default Asian fonts.

Under Linux you can install the Dzongkha XKB file for xfree86
this should be on pretty well every Linux distribution
(somewhere like:  /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/bt). This Dzongkha
Keyboard works just as well for Tibetan.

m17n-lib / SCIM which is in most Linux distributions
has a Wylie input method bo-wylie which you can install.
( /usr/share/m17n/bo-wylie.mim)

Fonts:

Tibetan Machine Uni: <http://packages.debian.org/stable/x11/ttf-tmuni>
Jomolhari: <http://packages.debian.org/stable/x11/ttf-dzongkha>
- these packages should work with Ubuntu and other Debian based distributions.

<http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/development/SRPMS/jomolhari-fonts-0.003-3.fc7.src.rpm>
<http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/development/SRPMS/tibetan-machine-uni-fonts-1.0-1.fc7.src.rpm>
- these packages are for RedHat, Fedora and other distributions which use RPM 
packages.

There are numerous input methods available for Chinese - I don't read Chinese so 
I don't know which is best.

On Windows XP/2000 you will also need to enable complex script support and 
update Uniscribe (USP10.DLL) to a version which supports Tibetan.
see:
<http://www.tibetanportal.com/explanations/explanations.pdf>
<https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/access/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/updating%20uniscribe%20for%20tibetan%20in%20windows%202000%20&%20xp.html>

For Unicode Tibetan input on Windows you can use TISE:
<http://rs3.slackware.ru/tise/>
The Dzongkha keyboard is also available for Windows as well as several Unicode 
Tibetan input methods using Tavultesoft Keyman. see: 
<http://www.thdl.org/tools/input.html>
all these should work with OOo on Windows.

Fonts:

Jomolhari & Tibetan Machine Uni are both available from:
<http://www.thdl.org/tools/fonts/tibfonts.php?l=uva10924125554021&m=set>

hope this helps

Chris

P.S. French government has apparently decided to switch to Ubuntu:
<http://news.softpedia.com/news/French-Parliament-Votes-Linux-Over-Windows-41159.shtml>