Thus, if you wish to type ‘ਪ੍ਰ’ you would enter Puppa (ਪ), Halant (੍) and finally Rara(ਰ). Thus when you wish to type Iri and Bihari you must use the pre-composed Iri Bihari character.Ĭonjuncts such as Paireen Haha and Paireen Rara are created using a Devanagari like Halant. In keeping with other Indian scripts such as Devanagari, Unicode encodes these independent vowels separately. Unlike other Indian scripts, Gurmukhi constructs independent vowels by using a combination of dependent vowel signs with Ura, Era and Iri. The concept of independent vowels is unusual in Gurmukhi.
There are peculiarities involved with using Unicode Gurmukhi that one should be aware of. This means that you can have any type of keyboard layout that you want and the underlying text will always be the same. Unicode also separates encoding from input. This is standardised on all computers so no matter what font you use, the text will be the same! Instead, it represents Gurmukhi with its own characters and does not use Latin text. For example, DrChatrikWeb shows the same letter as Ura. Using a different font would corrupt the Gurmukhi text and make it unreadable.
For example, with AnmolLipi the Latin capital letter 'A' represents Era. They worked by changing the appearance of Latin text characters so that they formed Gurmukhi. Historically, Gurmukhi has been represented using vast numbers of proprietary fonts – each with their own encoding method and keyboard layout. "Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language." It is a monumental step forward and allows non-English languages to be used universally on computer systems. Unicode is designed as a character set that allows virtually all written scripts in the world to be used on a computer. If you change the layout, this will not affect the fonts you are using. The same keyboard layout can be used for all Unicode Gurmukhi fonts. If you are unhappy, you can download a different one or you can get the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator to make your own.
We recommend you install both Saab and AnmolUni.įinally, you should get to grips with your keyboard layout.
You will not be able to type in Unicode Gurmukhi on older versions of Windows.ĭetails on how to enable Unicode Gurmukhi on your computer depending on your operating system are available.Īfter you have enabled Gurmukhi support on your computer, you should install some Unicode Gurmukhi fonts if you have not got any already. If you have an older version of Windows, you can download Internet Explorer 6.0 which will allow you to view Unicode Gurmukhi web pages. Older versions of Windows (95, 98, ME) do not support Unicode Gurmukhi. Windows XP and newer versions of Windows will fully support Unicode Gurmukhi. This is a simple process if your operating system has this ability.
To get started you need to check that your computer supports Unicode and install the appropriate software to handle Gurmukhi.