Dear Chris,
Thanks for your help. I'll have to rule out the first option as I don't use
or have MS-Word (except version 1) and besides, I much prefer the second
option and have the Sinhala keyboard installed on my Windows XP/SP3 system.
I think the keyboard layout is based on the old Sinhalese typewriter.
However there are certain combinations of symbols requiring the use of the
ctrl-alt keys which are hard to get information on and it took me awhile to
figure out the ā and ū.
The Sinhala keyboard is my second one. The one I use for most of my typing
is called Alt-Latin which is the best one I know of for Roman-based
alphabets which include the ones for Pali and Sanskrit and Western European
languages. Depending on how I make out with the new keyboard, I 'm also
considering adding one for Burmese and Devanagari. I have been coming across
the "Iskoola Pota" Sinhala font and would like to get a copy of it. I'm
using Kaputa and Dinamina. The latter was downloaded from icta.lk and the
former is theone used for CST4.
Although I can read Pali in the Burmese, Devanagari, and Thai scripts
without much difficulty, the Sinhala is the one script that gives me the
most trouble because of the finer details, the look-alike letters and the
blurred quality prevalent in the old printed books. I have started to take a
close look at Rev. Benj. Clough's A Compendious Pali Grammar (1824) which is
full of Pali in blurry Sinhala script. I thought it would be useful to
reproduce some of the pages in a more readable form. It's not such a bad
grammar and it is based on the Bālāvatāra.
Best,,
Jim.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Clark chris.clark@... [palistudy]"
<palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: February 26, 2016 5:46 PM
Subject: RE: [palistudy] On typing Sinhala characters
Dear Jim,
I suggest that while in MS Word you go to "insert" > "insert symbols" >
"more symbols", then locate the appropriate font in the dropdown menu
("Iskoola Pota" is the Sinhala font I use). It should then display all the
graphemes available in this font and you can select the "o". Click on
"shortcut key" if you want to give this symbol a new keyboard combination
(this can be done for any grapheme).
If you use Windows, the other option is to download a language specific
"keyboard". This can be done by searching for "change keyboard or other
input methods" in the control panel. Then go to "change keyboards", then
"add...". This is the option I prefer and I have one keyboard for
Sanskrit/Pali fonts and one for Burmese fonts.
Of course, the exact methods to do the above will depend upon what version
of Word and Windows you have.
Let me know if you need more help.
Regards,
Chris
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Posted by: Chris Clark <chris.clark@...>
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