A Guide to Unicode Bangla for Different Browsers

This article represents a quick-starter-guide for unicode Bangla environment in your browsers if you are using Windows. No matter which browser you use, just follow the separate instructions for separate browsers. This post covers mainly three major browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome.

For viewing Bangla fonts in different browsers click the following links:

For writing Bangla click the following link:


Bangla Unicode Fonts in Google Chrome

First of all check that whether you can read Bangla Fonts with your Google Chrome. Just try to read the following boxed sentenced.

সুখ নাইরে পাগল… কী আছে দুনিয়ায়!

If you can’t read then you surely need to carry out the following instruction guide. By the way this guide is for “Windows XP Service Pack 2”. So make sure you are using that. I’ve not tried whether it works in SP1 or Vista. But as the release dates of Windows XP and Windows 2003 is almost same, it should work in Windows 2003 server. And for Vista it should work automatically.

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Bangla Unicode Fonts in Opera

First of all check that whether you can read Bangla Fonts with your Opera. Just try to read the following boxed sentenced.

সুখ নাইরে পাগল… কী আছে দুনিয়ায়!

If you can’t read then you surely need to carry out the following instruction guide. By the way this guide is for “Windows XP Service Pack 2”. So make sure you are using that. I’ve not tried whether it works in SP1 or Vista. But as the release dates of Windows XP and Windows 2003 is almost same, it should work in Windows 2003 server. And for Vista it should work automatically.

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Bangla Unicode Fonts in Firefox 3

Previously I’ve written a step by step guide for setting the Firefox up for Bangla unicode fonts. That was for Firefox 2. But that guide can also handle Firefox 3 (some of my reader have already done that and I myself also). So if you are using Firefox 3 and can’t see Bangla fonts then click here.

Another common problem is, many users are seeing the Bangla title in the tabs too small too read clearly. This can be fixed if you use Solaiman Lipi as your default Bangla unicode fonts. Click here to download Solaiman Lipi fonts. Another font with which you can resolve this problem can be downloaded from here. Also you can use Siyam Rupali for avoiding this problem. If the problem still exists then go to Vrinda Hacking; download the Vrinda font from there and put it in your Windows’ Font folder replacing the older one. It should make your Bangla look better. (I myself didn’t try with the Vrinda font, because I got the better look with the Solaiman Lipi font and I actually don’t recommend Vrinda.) You also can download a lot of Bangla unicode fonts from Omicronlab.

If you are new to Bangla keyboard or facing problems in writing with Bangla fonts, you can read this article.

If you are done then welcome to Bangla Blogosphere.

Bangla Typing with Avro Keyboard

Avro Keyboard Startup Splash

Like the most of the Bangladeshi people, I don’t know the Bangla keyboard layouts. Because in Bangla scripts we’ve 11 vowels, 35 consonants, 5 modifiers and numerous consonant conjuncts. To make it more complex, there are several keyboard layouts which are differ from each other. It is a quite difficult matter for me to be handy with one of those keyboards. What a shame for me! Being a Bangladeshi I don’t know how to write Bangla in IT world! But that problem was pacified when I met with Avro Keyboard.

I received several questions from my known-circles about how a complete idiotic ignorant of Bangla Key-layouts like me writes in Bangla. Actually that’s why I must thank to Avro Keyboard. Because this keyboard supports English to Bangla phonetic typing method. That means if you write amar sonar bangla. it’ll show “আমার সোনার বাংলা। automatically. Isn’t it fantastic! See a snap shot on how your English text is converting to Bangla using Avro Keyboard.

Avro Key Board preview

Avro Keyboard is a free software. Any one can download it. After installing it’ll be automatically stored in your system tray leaving a small toolbar on the top of your desktop. This toolbar indexes all the options for using the keyboard. This tool bar is also very stylish in outfits. Just look it at below.

Avro Keyboard Toolbar

Another exciting feature is that you can use mouse for typing Bangla like the Character Map of Windows OS. For the totally newbies (who even can’t use keyboard) this is a damn good option for writing in Bangla.

Now you all know my secret of writing Bangla in the Blogosphere or in Facebook or Orkut! But to use it on your browser first you need to set up your browser for Bangla Unicode. I prefer Firefox for that job. Read my guide for Firefox users to prepare Firefox for Bangla unicode.

Bangla Unicode Fonts in Firefox 2.0

Update!

Just a several months back like many people, I used to browse the Bangla sites (specially the Bangla news papers) with Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). Because Firefox (FF) couldn’t handle the Bangla fonts. Bangla fonts appeared in the Firefox was scattered and broken. Though as a browser FF is always my first choice, for the Bangla sites I stucked on IE7. Recent days I am able to handle the Bangla sites with FF smoothly. But I am hearing many complains from various persons regard the problem I’ve faced earlier. For this purpose, I decided to write an article which will guide anyone to fix this problem. This article is going to guide you for setting up FF for viewing Bangla unicode fonts. For writing this article, I took help from Bokaader Poddyo.

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