Systems Development Laboratory
Indian Institute Of Technology, Madras, India.
Readme File for the Multilingual Editor Package
Developed at IIT Madras.
Date : April 2006
This readme file accompanies version-3 of the multilingual editor. This
version incorporates several useful enhancements over the earlier
versions distributed in 1998 and 2001. New scripts are supported so as
to cover most of the Indian languages as well as Sinhala.
The editor comes in different versions to offer flexible means of
data entry. Details may be gathered from the website of the Systems
Development Laboratory, IIT Madras (Please see below).
Contents
I) Introduction
II) User Manual for the Editor
III) Installation
IV (a) A note on the Fonts for Use with the Editor
(b) Installing Fonts for the Multilingual Editor
V) Copyright Information
VI) Feedback
I)Introduction:
The multilingual editor is a simple but very useful program for
preparing documents in all the Indian languages and scripts.The Windows
version of the program can export documents to other windows
application in the .rtf(Rich Text) format. The editor is particularly
useful for automatic transliteration across the different scripts
including Roman with diacritics.
The package comes with a viewer program which may be used independently
to view the documents prepared with the editor. Also, utilities to convert
the documents into the HTML format and view Roman transliterated text in
different scripts are avaialble for use with the package. These may be
downloaded from the same website.
II) User Manual For the Editor
On-line help is provided in the Editor and details pertaining to the
features of the Editor are given. The Help file may also be read off-line by
clicking on the IITMfcEd.hlp file in the directory in which the Editor was
installed. Use the Windows Explorer to locate the file or just click on
'My Computer' on the Windows Desktop and go through the folders leading to
the IITM Software directory where the help file is located.
If necessary, the User Manual may be printed and kept for off-line
reference. An HTML version of the user manual (Help File) is available
on-line at the lab's website referenced below.
It is necessary for you to make sure that fonts for the different
scripts supported by the Editor are installed. Information about
installing the fonts will be displayed on the screen during the
Setup process. Please remember to install the fonts as per instructions
given in Section IV.
This version of the Editor is supplied with fonts created at IIT Madras.
These fonts share some common features and are generally well suited
for quality printouts.
III) Installation:
The package is available in two different forms.
1)A single .zip file downloadable from the Lab's website
(http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/software/iitmed.php)
2)On three diskettes (1.44 Mb,3.5 inch media)
Diskettes may be copied from a friend who has already downloaded
the diskette images from the above mentioned site.
The installation is quite straightforward and is in line with the normal
setup method for most Windows applications.
a) Diskette based Installation:
Insert the set up disk (Disk1) into the A drive and run the setup
program. Follow the instructions and when the setup program completes,
install the fonts supplied, as per directions given on the screen.
b) program downloaded from the net:
The file iitmedv3.zip may be copied to a temporary directory and
unzipped using an appropriate utility (pkunzip, winzip etc...). After
unzipping the file, run the setup program seen in the directory where
the files were unzipped. Follow the instructions on the screen and when
setup completes, install the fonts as per directions given on the screen.
IV a) A Note on the Fonts for use with the Editor
Over the years, a number of freely distributed fonts have appeared
on the net for displaying text in different Indian scripts. Unlike the
usual Windows applications for English text which permit the use of a
large number of fonts to display text, the multilingual editor requires
that only specified fonts be used. This is a consequence of the wide
variations seen between fonts designed for Indian scripts and the lack
of standardized placement of the glyphs (letter shapes) within the font.
The Multilingual Editor is supplied with fonts that have been
made available free of charge, by their designers. As such only these
fonts can be used with the Editor. However, the design of the Editor
allows almost any True Type Font to be used but for each new font a
specific support file needs to be included within the Font Tables
directory corresponding to the location where the Multilingual Editor
was installed.
The Systems Development Laboratory website includes additional
fonts for use with different scripts along with the necessary support
files. Please visit
http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/software/fonts/iitmfonts.html
and read about including new fonts for the Editor.
IV b)Installing fonts for the Multilingual Editor:
1) Make sure you have completed the setup for the Multilingual editor.
2) Click on the `My Computer' icon on the Windows desktop and when the
new window opens, click on the control panel.
3) Click on the `Fonts' icon when the control panel opens up. You will
then see the set of fonts currently installed on your computer.
4) Click on the File menu and select `install new Fonts' when the file
menu drops down.
The system will now open up a new window allowing you to specify the
location of the fonts you wish to install. Specify the directory (by using
browse button) in which the fonts for the editor are kept. This is
xxxxxx\IITM Software\Fonts\
where xxxxxx.. is the base directory in which you installed the multilingual
editor. This is usually
c:\Program Files\
The system will show the names of all the fonts it has detected. Click on
Select All and OK. The system will install the fonts.
The Multilingual Editor will allow data entry even if fonts are not
installed but the display will consist of rectangular boxes or just plain
ASCII and hence the user will not be able to see the text in the required
script.
Fonts supplied with the package support the following scripts:
Devanagari, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Gujarati, Gurmukhi,
Bengali, Oriya and Roman with diacritics. The current distribution
also provides for Bharati Braille and Sinhala. However, users will
have to specifically make a request to the lab for the Braille and
Sinhala fonts.
V) Copyright Information
The copyright on the Multilingual Editor and the other programs
distributed as part of the IITM Software Package is held by the Indian
Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai. Please read the information
given in the cpright.txt file distributed with the package. This is
also displayed as Licencing information during installation.
In distributing the package free of charge, IIT Madras hopes that
the software will be used for spreading awareness of the use of computers
in one's own mother tongue thus helping literacy and basic education
to spread.
Please feel free to distribute the package to others, especially
school children. You might also want to have elders use the package in
order that they may record what they hold in memory for the benefit of
the coming generations.
VI) Feedback
The students of the Systems Development Laboratory, IIT Madras will
appreciate it very much if you provide some feedback on your experiences
in using the Editor. Please send your views via email to
rkk@shiva.iitm.ernet.in or rkk@acharya.iitm.ac.in
In particular, your feedback on difficulties in using the editor will be
appreciated.
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Special Note on using the Editor with WinXP and Win2000.
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The earlier version of the Editor did not work properly with Win2000
and WindowsXP2000 systems though there was no problem on WinNT. WinXP
and Win2000 systems have implemented differently, some of the functions
used by the editor. This would cause the editor to emit a very long beep,
often as long as 30 seconds, whenever an invalid key sequence was entered.
During the beep, data entry would be blocked and this was a cause for
annoyance. IITM had now incorporated the changes required in the current
version of the editor for use with Win2000/XP.
Also, on WinXP and Win2000 systems, the text displayed in the
editor window would show gaps between aksharas when the akshara had a
matra. This is a problem that is specific to Microsoft's implementation
of the rendering of fonts with zero width glyphs. Surprisingly, the gaps
would diappear when the text is copied and pasted on to Word, but Wordpad
and some other applications would still show the gap.
Through a small trick, the gaps may be removed and this requires the user
to install a new set of fonts.
The executable for winXP and Win2000 along with the special fonts are
available for download from the acharya web site. It is also possible
that the executable included in the editor package is the version that
will work properly on all windows systems. Please check out the
executable on your system to see if it handles invalid key sequences
properly.
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Support for Bharati Braille
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The new version of the Editor has support for generating Bharati
Braille output from the text prepared using the Editor. Bharati Braille
is treated as another script and by selecting a new Language, one can
obtain the Bharati Braille output. This output can be copied and pasted
onto Duxbury software or Word and saved as a text file and embossed
on any standard Braille Embosser using the nfbtrans utility (Freely
available).
This version also supports the creation of Braille documents for use
by students of Mathematics. Braille conforming to the Nemeth Code
can be easily typed in using the Editor. About 180 Nemeth symbols are
supported.
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Documentation included with the editor package.
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The use of the editor requires familiarity with the concept of Aksharas.
To help users understand the syllable based approach to dealing with text,
three files have been included (in the ldocs subdirectory). These are,
1. wrisys.llf : A local language file explaining the writing system
followed for Indian languages.
2. derules.llf : A local language file explaining the rules for data
entry using the editor
3. peculiar.llf : Peculiarities of the writing systems. This file has
useful information relating to the data entry of
aksharas specific to a script.
Test Files:
vande.llf : A local language file containing the text of "Vande Mataram"
in all the nine scripts. May be used to check if the editor
is operational.
ltest_sans.llf : A comprehensive listing of all the samyuktakshars handled
by the editor.
ganesha.itx : A text file in ITRANS format to test the correctness of
"tconvert", the program to convert ITRANS text to the .llf
format.
--------------- The latest versions of the above .llf files ---------
--------------- are always available for download from the ---------
--------------- acharya web site http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/ --------
--------------- Please follow the link for the multilingual ---------
--------------- editor. ---------
------------------- End of Readme.txt -------------------------------