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I have been able to access sanskrit fonts. How do I type half letters to get compound letters in Sanskrit?

Eric Carvalho
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Dr.C.Badrinathan
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4 Answers4

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ibus gives you some extra choices of keyboard layout, including the phonetic Kyoto-Harvard system for entering Devanāgarī. astyuttarasyAM dizi devatAtmA -> अस्त्युत्तरस्यां दिशि देवतात्मा हिमालयो नाम नगाधिराजः| पूर्वापरो तोयनिधीवगह्य स्थितः पृथिव्यामिव मानदण्डः||

Dominik
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The UTF-8 sanskrit set makes composite letters quite simple to enter using the virama, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virama. That is, a compound is created by entering each of the individual letters with a virama between each one. For example, क्ष is composed of क ् ष , त्र is composed of त ् र, ज्ञ is composed of ज ् ञ, and so on.

As far as keyboard layouts go, this is probably up to personal preference. Anything which can enter the UTF-8 sanskrit range will do, even an on-screen keyboard (I created one here: http://www.devananda.net/kb/devanagari.html). I find the Hindi (Wx) layout very usable.

To select it, open "System Settings" -> "Keyboard Layout", select the "Layouts" tab, and click the small "+" sign at the bottom-left. Select the "Hindi (Wx)" layout and install it. You may need to log out and back in for some things to take effect. You can also click the small picture of a keyboard on the bottom-left of this screen to view the layout. In any case, using this keyboard layout, entering compound sanskrit letters is quite simple -- the "a" key enters a virama, and the font takes care of the rest.

Devananda
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type ' d' it will be a 'halant'. it means if you want to type 'pra' you have to type 'h' + 'd' + 'j' .

techvish81
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    you dont need ibus to type sanskrit, i use the normal devnagri selected from keyboard layouts and it works. – techvish81 Jul 24 '12 at 08:44
  • yes it is right, ibus gives you more choices, if you are not comfortable with the default devnagari layout. the somewhat similiar phonetic system of entering words is available in the default keyboard layout configuration, it is 'bolnagri' – techvish81 Jul 25 '12 at 11:06
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Google Transliteration works reasonably well. It is almost phonetic.

For offline use, Indian keyboard layout (symbol in) that uses d for halant, D for अ, k for क, etc. works quite well.

deshmukh
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  • Yes so here deshmukh means with "Indian keyboard layout" means the Inscript layout. It comes when one chooses Country = India. That means devanagari. Stupid and confusing, but that's how it is now. – Ossi Viljakainen Nov 05 '15 at 15:49