Webpages of Tamil Electronic Library �K. Kalyanasundaram, 1995-1998



Implementation Tools
(Fonts, Keyboard Editors, Convertors,..)
for the Proposed Tamil Standard Code
for Information Interchange (TSCII)

Tamil Electronic library pages moved to tamilelibrary.org !!!

Introduction
During the last five years there has been a phenomenal growth in the number of websites carrying materials in Tamil script. Unfortunately, in the absence of an established standard, each website uses a tamil font with its own encoding scheme. So one needs to have more than a dozen tamil fonts to be able to read all the tamil materials that are being presented in the WWW.
For over 18 months, many of the tamil lovers (tamil software developers, software professionals, webmasters of tamil websites, academics, tamil research scholars,.... interested to see a tamil standard established soon), joined together to examine various possible font encoding scheme in an email discussion forum called tamil.net. This community has now come up with one Tamil Standard Code for Information Interchange (TSCII) through the Internet. There is a dedicated website for the proposed Tamil Standard where you can get all the information about this standard and also implementation tools. Growing number of tamil font/software developers are providing various tools to implement the Tamil Standard in various computer platforms (OS).

  • Click here to view a .gif of the proposed TSCII font encoding scheme
  • Click here to view the draft proposal related to the Tamil Standard TSC -HTML format

  • Click here to download .pdf version of the draft proposal related to the Tamil Standard TSC (portable document format of Adobe)

    In this page, we are pleased to provide a colleciton of web pointers that allows direct downloading of the TSCII-based tamil fonts, keyboard editors for text input, convertors to go from one of the existing encoding scheme to TSCII etc. Feel free to download the tools and test them in your computer.

    Tools for Implementation of Tamil Standard in Different Computer OS /Platforms

    • A. Tamil Font Faces and Keyboard Editors based on TSCII encoding scheme
    • B. Text Convertors - to convert tamil texts prepared using current, popular tamil fonts to correspond to TSCII encoding
    • C. Customized Email Softwares for use with TSCII based tamil fonts
    • D. Online Webpage convertors - to convert Anjal/Inaimathi or Mylai font based webpages to one corresponding to TSCII encoding
    • E. Guidelines for setting up Tamil webpages based on TSCII encoding

    You can click on the name of the tool to download the tool directly.

    I. TSCII Tools for use in Windows OS (3.x/95/98/NT)

    Tamil Font faces corresponding to TSCII encoding scheme
    Click here to see an image file showing different TSCII-conformant fonts available free.
    Font faceType Author
    MylaiTSC truetype (fixed width)
    similar to Mylai/Mylaiplain     		K. Kalyanasundaram, Lausanne, Switzerland
    Sri-TSC truetype
    similar to Adhawin, Mylai-Sri     		K. Srinivasan, Montreal, Canada
    MaduramTSC truetype
    derived from Maduram     		Vasu Devan, Kamban Softwares, Sydney
    InaimathiTSC
    (part of Anjal Email package)     		truetype
    derived from Inaimathi    		Muthu Nedumaran, Murasu Systems, Malaysia
    AparaTSC truetype Kalaimani, Tharagai Softwares, Singapore
    ThunaivanTSCtruetype Ravindran Paul, Micro Mart, Malaysia
    Tamil_Avarangal3_TSC truetype Sinnathurai Srivas, UK
    TneriTSC truetype Arivan, Thamizh Neri Kazhagam, Perak, Malaysia
    Keyboard Editors for Text input using TSCII-based fonts
    Editor Author File name
    Keyman Editor
    I :Program customised
    II: config. files    		 Dr.Kumar Mallikarjunan
    Mr.D. Sivaraj, both of USA     		tsc.exe
    keymaps.zip
    Anjal Editor
    Text Editor-cum
    Email software    		 Mr. Muthu Nedumaran
    Murasu Systems, Malaysia     		anjal201.exe
    Cuvadi Text Editor Mr. Elango Sambandam, Chicago, USA Suvadi.zip
    Text Convertors to go between different Encoding Schemes
    Software Description, Author Filename
    Murasu Font Converter
    A Convertor of texts from
    Inaimathi/Murasu/Typewriter/Mylai formats
    to TSCII standard
    Author: Muthu Nedumaran of
    Murusu DTP packages, Singapore/Kuala Lampur    		 MURASUFC.EXE
    This program works as a plugin in the free Murasu Anjal and also as a stand-alone program.

    FCMATRIX.ZIP
    Matrix files needed to convert with Murasu Font Converter of Muthu Nedumaran. This set includes a matrix file for TSCII-Tamil. Convertor files for Mylai and other formats are available at the TSCII website
    Authors: Mr. D. Sivaraj and Dr. Kumar Mallikarjunan.

    Cuvadi Tamil Text Editor
    Author:Mr. Elango Sampandam, Chicago, USA
    Provides conversion from Mylai/Inaimathi font formats to TSCII encoding.    		Suvadi.zip
    Integrated Text Editor-cum-Email Softwares based on TSCII
    Software Description, Author Filename for download
    TMAIL 1.0
    TMAIL 1.0 is a customized Tamil Text Editor-cum-Email software
    Text input options: Phonetic and typewriter keyboards.
    Displays all the menu options and Help files in Tamil too!
    Author: Mr. Vasudevan of Kamban Softwares, Australia, Australia    		TMAIL 1.0
    Murasu Anjal 2.0
    Anjal 2.0 is an integrated keyboard driver, convertor, editor and conversion matrix editor from Murasu Systems. See elsewhere on this page for more information. Also available in CD-ROM.
    Author: Muthu Nedumaran     		Murasu Anjal 2.0

    II. TSCII Tools for use in Macintosh OS

    A. Tamil Font faces based on TSCII encoding
    Click here to see an image file showing different TSCII-conformant fonts available free.
    Font faceType Author
    MylaiTSC truetype K. Kalyanasundaram, Lausanne, Switzerland
    MaduramTSC truetype Vasu Devan, Kamban Softwares, Sydney
    AparaTSC truetype Kalaimani, Tharagai Softwares, Singapore
    TneriTSC truetype Arivan, Thamizh Neri Kazhagam, Perak, Malaysia
    Keyboard Editors for Text Input on Mac using TSCII conformant fonts
    Keyboard Editor Source / Author
    SILKEY Editor for Text input as per Mylai98 keymap or as per tamil typewriter keymap K. Kalyanasundaram

    III. Akaram Tamil Text Editor for use in Unix Platforms

    Chinnasamy Nagarajan (Nagu) has developed a Tamil Text Editor that is freely downloadable.
    Akaram Tamil Editor v0.6 Pongal Release is available from: http://www.tamil.net/tscii/akaram.tar.Z

    This release is primarily aimed at UNIX users. The features supported are:

      o Support for TSCII encoding
      o Supports multiple Input Methods, such as:

        - Anjal Transliteration Method
        - Mylai Input Method
        - Tamil Nadu Govt. proposed typewriter layout
        - Tamil Nadu Govt. proposed phonetic layout

      o Comes with TSCAkaram font and other TSCII based free fonts
      o Facilities to work with multiple files at the same time
      o Option to save files in HTML, Plain Text, Akaram Text formats
      o Support to edit formatted text
      o Provides Toolbar controls and option to hide/display them
      o Provides Online Hyptertext Help

    The source code of this software is available free for modifying and distributing. Please see the section on License & Warranty in Help.html.
    For further information, please refer to README.txt and Help.html.
    This Release of Akaram is tested by:Mr. Sivaraj, Mr. Anbuman and Mr. Subramaniam.

    Online Convertors to convert webpages to TSCII encoding

    On-line Webpage Convertordeveloped by Mr. D. Sivaraj can be used to convert Anjal/Inaimathi and Mylai-based Webpages in Tamil to equivalent ones in TSCII Format.This program works as a CGI perl script. The converted webpage can be saved locally (save the "source" file) to put up the TSCII-based web-pages!

    • For Inaimathi/Anjal font based Webpages
      Prefix any Anjal/Inaimathi based webpage URL with:
      "http://www.tamil.net/cgi-bin/anj2tsc?"
      Viola! You got the page in TSCII.
      For example: Read Kalaignar's Kuraloviam on Tamil.Net .

    • For Mylai font based Webpages
      Prefix any Mylai URL with: "http://www.tamil.net/cgi-bin/myl2tsc?" for converting it from Mylai to TSCII.

      For example: Read Kannadhasan film songs web page.


    Tamil webpages based on TSCII-guidelines and sample pages

    ".pdf" (portable document format") files based on TSCII font

    There is growing interest to use "pdf" files as the medium for distribution of formatted text materials in the internet. Tamil text materials (electronic texts, publicity brochures of commercial establishements,..) can be distributed using TSCII conformant fonts.

    Here are some sample pdf files that you can download and see for yourself how the concept works. The font is embedded in the pdf file. Hence you should be able to read the tamil text therein directly on your computer (Mac or Unix) without the need to install the tamil font. Unfortunately on Windows, due to some bug in the Adobe pdf-writer that I used to generate the file (on a Power Mac), the embedded font does not show up. You need to install the TSC font first (font can be downloaded using the pointers given above) and then you can view the pdf file.

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    This file was last updated on Jan. 14, 99
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