HELP WITH BANGLA SCRIPT

1. The Bangla keyboards built-in to the site and their layouts

- See this link.

2. If you have difficulty viewing Bangla fonts and conjunctions on your computer, follow these instructions:

2.A. For WINDOWS users

a) Install this software Windows Complex Script from here or here.

b) Download this Unicode Bangla Font (BNG.ttf) from here.

c) Install the downloaded font in the “Fonts” folder of Windows. To install the font, go to ‘Control Panel’ - click “Fonts” - copy in (paste) “BNG.ttf” inside the “Fonts” folder - press F5 twice to refresh.

d) Now optimise your browser for viewing Bangla properly. Setup your browser: View->character encoding->unicode (utf8)[see section 3 for details or here, or here, or here]

e) ALTERNATIVE: If you do not have Administrator-privileges on the computer you are working then use this Virtual Bangla Fonts tool. According to the creators: ” ‘Banglasavvy‘ is a Virtual Bangla Font Installer for Windows XP/2000/98/NT. It will let you install ‘Bangla Font’ virtually to any system regardless of Administrator privilege. That means when you have limited access to some PC and do not have permission to install anything including fonts, this tool will be very handy then.”

2.B. FOR LINUX USERS

See here and here.

2.C. APPLE-MAC USERS

If you are using OSX, you may have some difficulty opening UNICODE based Bangla sites such as Muktangon. You may try this solution by Ekushey. After installing the Bangla Keyboard and the necessary Fonts from Ekushey, please follow the steps/hacks suggested under this solution. Generally, we strongly advise you to use Firefox-3 (Mac version) to browse Muktangon which we found to be more stable compared to Safari. With Safari you may experience frequent crashes. Please feel free to EMAIL us if you still experience any trouble with these solutions.

3. How to Optimise your browser for best Bangla viewing

The look of this site may vary from one browser to another. To fine tune your browser for best Bangla viewing, please follow these instructions:

3.A. Users of Internet Explorer: see here or here.

3.B. Users of Mozilla Firefox: We strongly recommend using this browser. Download it from here. To configure Firefox, use the instructions provided here or here.

3.C. Users of Netscape Navigator:

3.D. Users of Safari: see here

3.E. Opera:

4. How to type Bangla on your computer?

4.A. If you are using WINDOWS:

a) AVRO SOLUTION:

- download Avro Keyboard from here and install by double clicking the downloaded file.

- use AVRO Keyboard to type Bangla phonetically. See the keyboard layout and the help files in Avro if you need more information. Contact us using the CONTACT FORM if you need any assistance.

- alternatively Avro Portable Edition can also be used. This enables users to run Avro from Pendrive (or similar portable devices) without having to install it on the PC. It can be downloaded from here.

b) see section 5 for other Bangla typing solutions.

4.B. If you are using LINUX:

- see here and here.

4.C. If you are using Apple-MAC:

-You may try this solution by Ekushey.

5. How to type Bangla without having to install any new software on your PC?

- While writing a POST: You may use one of the three permanently installed keyboards (eg, Unijoy, Probhat, Phonetic) inside the Admin area. In order to access the area you have to log-in first. See section-3 of the “HELP/সাহায্য” page for detailed advice on writing posts. If you are not familiar with the layouts of the Bangla keyboards, please visit this page.

- While writing a COMMENT: you do not need an account to be able to post comments. In the “COMMENT/মন্তব্য” writing area below each post, you will notice three Bangla keyboards (Unijoy, Phonetic, Probhat), permanently attached. You can use any of them to post comments. If you are not familiar with the layouts of the Bangla keyboards, please visit this page.

‌- Webtool: In addition to the above, you can also visit this Webbased Tool to write Bangla.

6. How to convert (old) non-Unicode Bangla texts to Unicode Bangla?

a. Visit this Webbased tool.
b. copy and paste whatever you want to convert inside the box (the one at the bottom) called “purono bangla”.
c. click the tab “unicode e bodle upore nao”
d. see the result in the upper box.
e. copy text from the upper box and paste it on your blogpost’s typing area.

7. Solution for the small fonts problem

If you think the font size is too small, you can use the “text size”/”zoom” feature of your browser to enlarge it. The methods for increasing “text-size” in different browsers are as follows:

–Firefox 2.0: Go to View->Text size->Increase; OR, hold down Control, and press “+”
–Internet Explorer 6: Go to View->Text size->Larger (or, Largest)
–Opera 9: Go to View->Zoom-> (select %); OR, press “+” for a 10% increase. [courtesy: Global Voices Bangla]