Pali Keyboard

Windows Keyboards for Typing with Unicode Latin-script Pali Fonts

In order to type Pali, you need a tool to map keystrokes to Pali characters, preferably one that works with commonly used applications. The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC) is an easy way to create Windows keyboards for typing languages that are not directly supported by Windows.

Here are some keyboards created with MSKLC for use with Unicode Pali fonts. These work with Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7.

Download:

Keyboard notes:

English(UK) + Pali: keystrokes for a, i and u with macron overwrite the keystrokes for á, í and ú. Switch to English (United Kingdom) keyboard to type these.

Deutsch (DE) + Pali: keystroke for m with dot below overwrites the keystroke for micro sign (µ). Switch to German keyboard to type this.

Nederlands (NL) + Pali: keystroke for m with dot below overwrites the keystroke for micro sign (µ). Switch to Dutch keyboard to type this. Keystrokes for r with dot below and s with dot below (for Hindi / Sanskrit) are not included because they would overwrite the keystrokes for ¶ and ß.
 

Installation:

1) Unzip the contents of the file. Important: if you ever want to uninstall the keyboard you must leave the installation files in the same location where they are when you install the keyboard.

2) Double click setup.exe.

3) Configure the keyboard in the Windows language settings, shown here with screenshots from Windows XP Pro installing the US + Pali keyboard.

Select Start Button | Control Panel | Regional and Language Options.

	Select the Languages tab. Click the Details button.
	On the Settings tab, click the Add button.
	Select the "Keyboard layout/IME" checkbox, then choose "US + Pali (Unicode)" from the dropdown. Then click OK.
	Make the English (US) + Pali keyboard your default keyboard by choosing it in the dropdown under "Default input language". Then click OK.
	The language bar should appear in the taskbar. Click on the keyboard icon and choose the Us + Pali (Unicode) keyboard.
	If you prefer to have the language bar positioned at the top of the screen, right click on the Language bar and choose "Restore the Language bar".

Here are the keystrokes for Pali.

Ctrl + Alt + Shift + y
Ctrl + Alt + y
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + a
Ctrl + Alt + a
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + i
Ctrl + Alt + i
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + h
Ctrl + Alt + h
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + u
Ctrl + Alt + u
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + d
Ctrl + Alt + d
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + v
Ctrl + Alt + v
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + l
Ctrl + Alt + l
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + m
Ctrl + Alt + m
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + g
Ctrl + Alt + g
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + n
Ctrl + Alt + n
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + r
Ctrl + Alt + r
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + s
Ctrl + Alt + s
Ctrl + Alt + Shift + t
Ctrl + Alt + t
 

Here are some printable keyboard charts for English (US) + Pali and keyboards with same layout (e.g. UK):

Begin to type Pali. Open Wordpad and switch to a Pali-supporting font: Tahoma (the version in XP), Arial Unicode MS, the excellent Times Ext Roman, etc. There's a good list of Unicode Pali fonts here.

Now test using Microsoft Word. (I only have the 2003 version to test with.) The Word keyboard shortcuts override the Pali keyboard. I consider this a bug (in Word). But there is a solution: clear the keystroke assignments that conflict with the Pali keyboard. There are about 8 conflicts. This is how:

Right click on the toolbar, choose Customize.

	Click the Keyboard button.
	In the "Press new shortcut key" box, type one of the Pali keystrokes. You can see in this case that the ® Registered symbol conflicts with Alt + Ctrl + R.
	1) From the Categories box, select Common Symbols 2) From the Common Symbols box, select ® Registered. 3) From the Current keys box, select Alt + Ctrl + R. 4) Click the Remove button. 5) Repeat this process for each of the 8 conflicting keystrokes.

Now test typing Pali in Word.