Follow some easy steps to set up Bengali unicode fonts in your computer’s operating system.
1. Is your system Unicode Supported??
Unicode Supported Systems:
If you are running Windows Vista or Gnome (2.8 or higher) based Linux Distro or KDE (3.0.3 or higher) based Linux Distro congratulation you don’t need any tweak to view Unicode supported sites since these systems are already Unicode supported.
Systems that would need some configuration:
But you say you are user of Windows XP or Mac OS X? No worry you just need a little bit (ok I confess “a bit”) of configuration to properly view the site. Just few ‘click’ ‘click’ you will be ready to go.
Unicode Setup in Windows XP & Mac OS X
Windows XP:
To view Bengali you need to install Windows complex script to view complex Asian characters like Bengali. To install complex script Go to Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Language, and check the “Install files for complex scripts and right-to-left languages” option. You will need your Windows XP SP2 installer CD to install these new files. You can also download the complex script from here.
Mac OS X:
Unicode support is built into Mac OS X. You need to download and install Bangla unicode supported fonts with Apple Advance Typography (AAT) to enable it. You can download some of them from Ekushey.Org. To view unicode Bangla web pages use Safari as your browser. Currently Firefox/Mozilla/Camino do not support AAT. As a result you will not see Bangla properly on those browsers. To input Bangla you have to download unicode Bangla keyboard layouts. You can download some of the layouts from Ekushey.Org.
Unicode Fonts
Recommendation:
We recommend user to install Solaiman Lipi (Bengali Unicode Font) for optimized viewing experience. Download SolaimanLipi from here for latest version.
Few other fonts:
However if you prefer some other Bangla Font you can find them at link1,link1,link3.
2. Browser Story
Unicode Supported Browsers:
We would recommend you to use following Unicode supported web browser: Firefox (3 or higher). On Linux you can use Iceweasel.
3. Setup Browser for Unicode
For Internet Explorer:
Go to Tools > Internet Options. Click on the Fonts button. Then select Language Script: Bengali, Webpage font: BNG. Click Ok.Go to your browser’s “view” menu and set the “character encoding” or “encoding” feature to: Unicode (UTF-8).
For Opera:
Go to Tools > Prefereces > Advanced tab > Fonts>International fonts>choose Bengali from drop down list. Select Bengali font of your choice. In most of the cases,opera automatically detects your support for unicode onece you have it in operating systems and installed fonts. Go to your browser’s “view” menu and set the “character encoding” or “encoding” feature to: Unicode (UTF-8).
Others:
If you face any problem with updated version of any browser then please contact to site admin or post about your problem in the forum.
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অভিনন্দন আপনি এখন বাংলা পড়ার জন্য প্রস্তুত!!!
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4. Bangla Keyboard
So lets get back to how you can write Bangla right? There is two way, online web based keyboard or desktop keyboard.
Web Based:
In our site we used free web based java script Phonetic, Probhat and Unijoy keyboard layouts to write unicode bangla.Phonetic and Unijoy scripts are developed by Hasin Hayder.We think that these two scripts are milestones in web based bangla computing.We like to thanks to this great phpexpert from Amaderprojukti Team for free distribution of these scripts. Following these scripts Sabuj Kundu of Amaderprojukti Team developed the Probhat script. All scripts are open source projects(:D) of ekushey.org.
If you wish to write Bangla anywhere online (not only in this site) then you can use somewhereinblog keyboard or for few layout option try TrivuZ notepad.
Desktop keyboard:
Avro by omicronlab: avro and avro portabale.
Avro manual is here in pdf format.
On most Linux Distro you have probhat layout built-in to use on your desktop (as well as online).
To use probhat keyboard on windows get instruction from here.
Addons and plugins:
Firefox addons by Shabdik: Download.
Thanks,
Amaderprojukti Team