Pāli Keyboard

Windows Keyboards for Typing with Unicode Latin-script Pāli Fonts

In order to type Pāli, you need a tool to map keystrokes to Pāli 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 Pāli fonts. These work with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista.

Update 31 May, 2007: Added Pāli keyboards based on Windows keyboards other than English (US). Renamed US English keyboard files and recompiled to support Windows Vista and 64-bit Windows platforms.

Download: (If you are not sure which one you need, download the 32-bit version for your language.)

Pāli Keyboard	Based on keyboard	Associated with language	32-bit Windows	64-bit Windows AMD64	64-bit Windows IA64
English (US) + Pāli	US	English (United States)	enuspali.zip (47K)	enuspali- amd64.zip (47K)	enuspali- ia64.zip (48K)
English (UK) + Pāli	United Kingdom	English (United Kingdom)	enukpali.zip (47K)	enukpali- amd64.zip (47K)	enukpali- ia64.zip (47K)
Nederlands (NL) + Pāli	Dutch	Dutch (Netherlands)	nlnlpali.zip (48K)	nlnlpali- amd64.zip (48K)	nlnlpali- ia64.zip (48K)
Français (FR) + Pāli	French	French (France)	frfrpali.zip (48K)	frfrpali- amd64.zip (48K)	frfrpali- ia64.zip (48K)
Deutsch (DE) + Pāli	German	German (Germany)	dedepali.zip (48K)	dedepali- amd64.zip (48K)	dedepali- ia64.zip (48K)
Español (CL) + Pāli	Spanish	Spanish (Chile)	esclpali.zip (48K)	esclpali- amd64.zip (48K)	esclpali- ia64.zip (48K)
Latin American (CL) + Pāli	Latin American	Spanish (Chile)	laclpali.zip (48K)	laclpali- amd64.zip (48K)	laclpali- ia64.zip (48K)
Español (MX) + Pāli	Spanish	Spanish (Mexico)	esmxpali.zip (48K)	esmxpali- amd64.zip (48K)	esmxpali- ia64.zip (48K)
Español (ES) + Pāli	Spanish	Spanish (Spain)	esespali.zip (48K)	esespali- amd64.zip (48K)	esespali- ia64.zip (48K)

Keyboard notes:

English(UK) + Pāli: 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) + Pāli: keystroke for m with dot below overwrites the keystroke for micro sign (µ). Switch to German keyboard to type this.

Nederlands (NL) + Pāli: 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 zip file, which contains a file with an MSI extension and a subdirectory containing a file with a DLL extension. 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 the MSI file.

3) If you are running Windows 2000 and your system does not know how to run the msi file, download and install the Windows Installer 2.0. Many applications, including Microsoft Office, install the Windows Installer, so you may already have it. Windows XP and Vista include the Windows Installer.

4) Now configure the keyboard in the Windows language settings, shown here with screenshots from Windows XP Pro installing the US + Pāli 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 + Pāli (Unicode)" from the dropdown. Then click OK.

Make the English (US) + Pāli 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 + Pāli (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 Pāli.

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) + Pāli and keyboards with same layout (e.g. UK): Lower Case and Upper Case

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

Now test using Microsoft Word. (I only have the 2003 version to test with.) The Word keyboard shortcuts override the Pāli keyboard. I consider this a bug (in Word). But there is a solution: clear the keystroke assignments that conflict with the Pāli 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 Pāli 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 Pāli in Word.