Tibetan Computing Resources


My opponent says there are no easy answers;
I say, "He's not looking hard enough!"
-- Bart Simpson



Macintosh

Fonts.

Although the latest versions of the Macintosh operating system (since OS X.5) have included Unicode Tibetan fonts. State-of-the-art fonts were originally available from Xenotype Technologies offering compatibility with Adobe InDesign, but are no longer being developed. The Qomolangma fonts from Tashi Tsering offer current adherence to the most recent Unicode Standard, and are highly recommended.

Unicode Keylayouts.

An XML keylayout file ("Columbia-UNI") that provides keymappings analogous to Pierre Robillard's "D" series Sanskrit diacritical keyboard (originally associated with the fonts: DTimes, DPalatino, DGaramond, DCaslon, etc.), except mapping to their equivalent Unicode characters; the keylayout also allows the input of Tibetan Unicode (documentation included).
     This keylayout and associated files are being made available under the GNU GPL. It is packaged along with its .icns file, a character keyboard guide, and installation instructions: Columbia-UNI.*


Windows / PC

Fonts.

A variety of Tibetan Unicode fonts are available from different organizations, such as Qomolangma fonts including their dbu-med typeface, and are highly recommended.

Tibetan Spell-checker.

A Visual Basic Macro for spell-checking Unicode Tibetan in Microsoft Word.
     Tibetan spell-checking can be performed in a variety of ways: inclusive rule-based, exclusive rule-based, and lexical (dictionary look-up, statistical, etc.). This VBScript was based on a Tibetan sort algorithm written in 1992, that performed exclusive recognition of spelling errors as a consequence of its design. Given the cumbersome nature of Visual Basic as a programming language, an exclusive spell-checker (and dictionary look-up) was deemed inefficient in terms of computational overhead, hence although the original identification criteria were retained, the algorithms were re-purposed for an inclusive spell-checker. This is the v. 1.0 release. It is not efficient nor necessarily robust, but will serve most purposes.
     The Tibetan Spell-checker performs three different types of checking: typographic errors, (possible) Sanskrit syllable recognition, and Unicode encoding errors (text requiring normalization for proper rendering by most fonts).
     The script is being made available under the GNU GPL. Documentation -- installation and use -- is included as part of the script.
     Download the macro script from here.


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