Note: This article is somewhat outdated. Please read the updated version of this article at my website www.33dots.com/index.php/web/to-read-and-type-malayalam.htm
A computer represents an alphabet using a number code. The coding scheme which is currently used (ASCII) however only represents the English alphabet and numerals and some special characters.
Unicode is a new encoding scheme which represents all alphabets in all languages in the world. In Unicode, Malayalam first letter ‘a’ (അ) is given the code number 3333. Similarly, different numbers are given for rest of Malayalam alphabets. The fonts that understand this new encoding scheme are called Unicode fonts.
The use of Unicode fonts opens up wonderful possibilities. For an example, it allows you to search google for Malayalam words and retrieve web pages which contain that particular Malayalam text.
To read and write Malayalam properly in your computer you need to have Unicode Malayalam fonts installed in your machine. Windows XP comes with a default Malayalam unicode font Karthika, but it is small and difficult to read.
So its recommended to install some other unicode malayalam font like AnjaliOldLipi, Rachana etc.
Please Note that the font used in the websites like Malayala-manorama, Deepika etc are not unicode, they are just usual ASCII encoded fonts which uses malayalam symbols at the places of English one’s. They use the code numbers assigned for English alphabets for Malayalam. This method does not have any of the features of Unicode fonts.
To install unicode font AnjaliOldLipi(Windows)
- Download the font from here
- Go to Control panel > Fonts > Install fonts(file menu)
- Browse to the font you downloaded.
- Click ok and the font will be installed.
To enable Firefox and IE read Malayalam page.
Note that you need these steps only if this if you see some garbage here “മലയാളം” or Here.
Firefox
- Make sure you have AnjaliOldLipi installed.
- Go to Tools > Options > Content (Tab)
- You can see the Fonts & Colors section. Take Advanced.
- Choose Malayalam from the Fonts for dropdown menu.
- Now set AnjaliOldLipi in each of the dropdown list. Click Ok and Ok.
- Check whether you can see malayalam written here “മലയാളം” or Here.
IE
- Go to Tools > Internet Options.
- Click Fonts and Choose Malayalam form the Language Script dropdown menu
- Set the font as AnjaliOldLipi in the below list box.
To Write Malayalam.
The standard computer keyboard is not designed to support Unicode character inputting.
So, one option is to use a software called Varamozhi. This software allows text inputting in Mozhi scheme [typing ‘ka’ in English will output malayalam letter ka (ക) in Varamozhi] and it automatically creates a unicode file.
Another option is to use a software called MozhiKeymap, which maps the keys you pressed to the appropriate Unicode one. This software allows typing into IE or Word directly in Mozhi scheme. Please click here for detailed installation instructions.
Incorrect Display [eg Chillu letters]
It’s seen that Firefox, Notepad etc render malayalam letters incorrectly while IE and Word etc display them correctly.
This is usually due to an old version of the Unicode rendering file ‘usp10.dll‘.
Usually installing a new version of this file from Microsoft may solve the problem.
Download and unzip the file to a temporary directory.
Rename the usp10.dll in windows/system32 to usp10OLD.dll[backup copy] and copy the new usp10.dll.
Also do the same with the usp10.DLL in the ../program files/common files/microsoft shared/office10 directory
Restart the windows.
Have fun reading and writing Malayalam 🙂 …..
Note: Please read the updated version of this article at my website www.33dots.com/
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Special thanks to Cibu for his Varamozhi page which is the source for most part of this article.
THis is really cool I am adding a link from the blog to here..
🙂 Thanks Vishnu for the appreciation..
Nice Info. Do you know which fonts malayalamonra’s web site is using ? If it is ASCII encoded font, what shall I do to view this in browsers such as Opera and Firefox ? Any sort of help is much appreciated 🙂
what about trying this..
http://invisipunk.blogspot.com/2005/03/manorama-in-firefox.html
Pls let me know the results..
Thanks for the info, it works fine now. I’ve been looking for this font for some time and the link provided by the site is dead : http://www.malayalamanorama.com/fonts/index.htm .
If possible, please shed some light on this. Is this is a Unicode compliant font ? The site displays fine on IE even without installing the font separately, why ?
this is not a unicode font but its a ‘dynamic font’..
see this for more info http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/getting_started/article.php/3479401
check the source of the manorama site you can see a javascript link like this “http://static.manoramaonline.com/portal/manoramafont/cpy_bvfont.js” this is doing the font downloading, i guess..
Thanks for the info.
Apparently Opera and FF doesn’t support this due to @font-face property. This property has been moved to CSS3 and it’s not a priority for these browsers right now : http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-webfonts/#font-descriptions
oh… thanks for updating me bugT 🙂
pls tell me how to configure mozilla firefox to read the malayalam web pages of” malayala manorama “and “mathrubhumi”
Try ths,
Download the font manually by clicking on the below link and copy to your ‘Fonts’ directory
http://www.manoramaonline.com/mmfont/Manorama.ttf
http://www.mathrubhumi.com/php/downloadFont.php
Reload the page..
Please let me know the result…
വിവരത്തിനു നന്ദി
വളരെ സന്തോഷം 🙂
pleas send me apple mac suport font
unable to read manorama using google chrome
Hi Lalu, I was able to read manorama site without doing anything in google chrome.
Also checked ml.wikepedia.org which to worked fine since i’ve already installed Anjali lipi.
Hi Kadar. Mac OS X and above has full support for unicode. So try to install the same AnjaliOldLipi from the link in the post. Once installed you could use safari or firefox. It should work, please post results…
nandhi snehithaa
സന്തോഷം 🙂
This was an extremely useful post. Installing a font worked for me on a Mac.
Thanks Rohit. Good to know that it worked in Mac. 🙂
Thanks a lot
hi
pls can u tell what technology used manorama and mathrubhumi done in there site
becoz im creating a site
i like to add any these technology to my web site
please tell me if u dont mind
hi
can i know manorama and mathrubhumi used font technology in their site
becoz i like to add these technology to create my own website
pls let me know if dont mind
Hi Shaafi, they use something called dynamic fonts.
Check this link for more info http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutorials/getting_started/article.php/3479401
When using IE, these fonts get automatically downloaded to the browsers cache. However, this does not work in other browsers like FF or opera, there you need to manually download and install the font.
Check the source of the manorama site you can see a javascript link like this “http://static.manoramaonline.com/portal/manoramafont/cpy_bvfont.js” this is doing the font downloading in IE, i guess..
This is the best of its kind!!! Thanks a lot buddy….. This is an all in one help page on malayalam font problems!! I was looking for that dll solution.
Thanks Jithin. 🙂
Thanks for this post..it solved the problem with the malayalam fonts in Firefox…
getsanju2004(at)yahoo.co.in
keralam
Thank you for the inform.