URDU HOW-TO

[jess]

Here are a few quick pointers on how to setup your computer to read and
write Urdu text.

___________________________
WINDOWS XP and WINDOWS 2000
Check the Urdu installation instructions for Windows XP and Windows
2000 at the JANG Urdu website http://jang.net/urdu Click on
"Installation Instructions" at the top.

_____
LINUX
Consult the Linux Urdu help page at http://geocities.com/urdutext/

__________
WINDOWS 98
Go to Microsoft's website and download Internet Explorer with Arabic
support.
http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/arabicdev/Misc/Downloads.asp

__________________
FONTS and KEYBOARD
For downloading Urdu "Nafees Web Naskh" fonts and Phonetic Urdu
keyboard, go to CRULP's website at http://crulp.org/ These fonts and
the keyboard can also be downloaded at JANG's website.

____________
FIREFOX HELP
- Set your browser encoding to UTF-8
- If you are reading the URDU pages with Mozilla FireFox, here is a
tip: Right-click on the screen, and choose "Switch page direction."
This will make the Urdu text appear correctly right-aligned.

____________
FURTHER TIPS
If after following the above steps, you are still having trouble, try
changing the website's specified fonts to the ones that your computer
can display Urdu in. On how to change fonts, consult
http://www.geocities.com/urdutext/tools.html

[Aijaz Akhtar (Aijaz Ubaid)]

This switch page direction mode of Firefox is a news to me. Thanks for this tip.
Aijaz

--
Aijaz Akhtar (Aijaz Ubaid)
Permanent Adddress: 9-1-25/A/1, Hashim Nagar
Langar House, Hyderabad. AP, India 500008
Phone: Land: (040) 23526002
Director (G) Engineering Geolgy Division, CR,
Geological Survey of India,
Seminary Hills, Nagpur
440006
Phone (0712) 2510484
Mobile: 09371043529

[jess]

خاص طور پر لکھتے وقت، یہ بہت کارآمد ہے۔

[jess]

I have updated the URDU TEXT help pages at
http://www.geocities.com/urdutext/
to include details about most common operating systems, including
windows'98.

وسلام۔

[jess]

URDU ON WINDOWS XP
Some people have complained that they cannot view Urdu on Google-Groups
properly on their Windows XP or Windows 2000 systems. The reason is
that GG specifes Arial as the font-style. On some of these systems,
Arial cannot display Urdu properly. The font that they should use is
"Arial Unicode MS." All that they have to do is to force their
web-browser to use "Arial Unicode MS" fonts. Information on how to do
that is availabel here
http://geocities.com/urdutext/
for FireFox and IE.

A more extreme solution is simply to uninstall all Arial fonts except
"Arial Unicode MS", i.e., move all Arial files except "Arialuni.ttf"
from WINNT/Fonts directory.

[jess]

_________________________________
URDU KEYBOARD BOOKMARKLET

This FireFox bookmarklet allows you to write in Urdu on the web without
the need for systems' Urdu keyboard. Open a webpage with a input-box
where you can write. Write pretending that you are writing with Urdu
phonetic keyboard. Click on the URDU button on the FireFox toolbar and
the text in the box will magically convert to Urdu. This "bookmarklet
keyboard" works in the FireFox web browser on all operating systems.

Get the bookmarklets from http://geocities.com/urdutext/

The FireFox Urdu keyboard, for example, works on the following sites:
GOOGLE
GOOGLE-GROUPS
JANG
GMAIL (BASIC HTML MODE)

For sites, where the bookmarklet won't work, there is a second PAD
bookmarklet, which open a TEXTPAD window, in which you can write, and
then convert to Urdu with the first bookmarklet. The Urdu text can then
be CUT-n-PASTE anywhere.