Malayalam Fonts & Typing Help

1.Malayalam Reading.

In two steps,you can envy those malayalees who still use those old technology called "manglish" for communication.Want to try ? Let us start here.

1.1.Download a perfect font - We are recommending to download a malayalam unicode font, most preferably Anjalioldlipi.Download the font to your computer's font folder. By default it would be C:/windows/fonts (for windows users).Or go to Control panel->fonts.

1.2.Set your browser for proper malayalam reading on a PC/Desktop

a.Internet Explorer(Click to enlarge the picture on a new window)

With the following 4 steps, you can configure your browser to display the proper malayalam. 1.Click on Tools -> Internet Options -> 2.Click on Fonts from the General Tab, 3.then select Malayalam from the Language script and 4.choose "Anjalioldlipi" as your default font.

b.Using Mozilla Firefox

Tools -> Options -> then set the Default font as "AnjaliOldlipi" then click on Advanced button and set the Fonts for Malayalam like the following page.

1.3.Set your browser for proper malayalam reading on an Android Phone - Read from Narayam.in

2.Typing tools & Fonts.

Following are the tools and fonts that we recommend to use for malayalam typing.We use the malayalam typing technology called transliteration or malayalam phonetic method. The inscript method is not specified here.Choose any of the following softwares according to your interest.

2.1 Typing tools (Click on each link to download)
1. KeyMagic-1.4-Win32-Malayalam.zip(Win7/XP)-by Junaid PV
2. Varamozhi - By Cibu CJ.
3. Type Online - By Raj Neettiyath.
4. Mozhi Keyman -(WinXP) by Raj Neettiyath.

2.2 Fonts for Malayalam
1. AnjaliOldLipi.ttf - By KevinSiji
2. Rachana.ttf - By K H Hussain
3. Anjali Font installer

2.3 English letter's mapping for malayalam alphabets.

If you are a beginner,we would advise to keep a hardcopy or printout for the below picture as a helper.This would help you as a quick reference to type proper malayalam.

3.How to type Malayalam ?

There are different methods to type unicode malayalam.We are explaining three most common methods.You can choose any of them according to your preference.

3.1. Using Varamozhi Software.(Click to enlarge on a new window)

Varamozhi typing is the best for beginners.It will help you to understand the keystrokes required for each malayalam letters. Choose "Anjalioldlipi" from the Font and start typing on the Manglish window.It will start show the corresponding malayalam letters on the Malayalam window.Once you complete the typing, choose the option "HTML export to print" from the File menu. It will show the malayalam text on a new window.You can copy and paste to use the same malayalam on mails,online browers,offline editors such as notepad,wordpad etc.

3.2.Using Keymagic or Keyman

(Keyman or Keymagic tool will help you to directly enter malayalam on online browsers,chat windows and offline editors such as notepad,wordpad etc ).See the following screen for typing malayalam using Keymagic on gmail.Use the Ctrl+M as a toggle key for turning on/off Malayalam.

 3.3 Type online without installing any softwares.

Certain websites will help you to type malayalam online without installing any software. http://varamozhi.appspot.com/assets/index.html is an example.It will show a phonetic keyboard on the screen and whatever you type on the screen will show as malayalam.M3DB uses this feature for our database search.

3.4 Type Malayalam on an Android Phone using Varamozhi - Read it from here from Narayam.in

References :

1. http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/സഹായം:ടൈപ്പിംഗ്‌

ഇന്റർനെറ്റ് മലയാളം മാനം മുട്ടെ വളർന്നു.ഇനിയും ഈ ടെക്നോളജിയെ പുറം കാലു കൊണ്ട് തൊഴിച്ചൊരു മൂലക്കിരുത്താൻ നാണമില്ലേ ഹേ .... :)