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Using Dzongkha on Apple Macintosh

These instructions will guide you through the process of installing the DDC Dzongkha Unicode fonts and DDC Dzongkha Keyboard on your Mac running OSX 10.4 or higher.

1. Install DDC Dzongkha Fonts

First you need to install a Dzongkha Unicode font on your Mac. Currently the only freely available Dzongkha fonts which render Dzongkha Unicode correctly on Mac OS X are DDC Uchen and Jomolhari.

Please note: Dzongkha fonts do not work in the Mac version of Microsoft Office or Microsoft Word, but they do work properly in OpenOffice on the Macintosh.

To install the DDC Dzongkha fonts:

  • Then, using Finder, navigate to your Downloads folder and click on the DzongkhaFonts.zip file to extract the Dzongkha Fonts folder.
  • Then, go to your Applications folder and open Font Book:
  • From the File menu in Font Book choose Add Fonts…
  • Navigate to the folder where you extracted the fonts, select DDC_UChen.ttf, and click Open.


2. Install Dzongkha Keyboard

  • Once you have downloaded the file, go to your Download folder and click on DzongkhaKeyboard-OSX.zip it to extract the files.
  • Then, using Finder, copy the files dzongkha.icns and dzongkha.keylayout to the Hard Drive ► Library ► Keyboard Layouts folder. You need not copy any other files to that location. Note: Throw any older Dzongkha keyboards and icons in the trash if you are upgrading to a more recent version.

  • Log out and log in again.
  • Then, from the Apple Menu navigate to the system preferences labled "International" or "Language and Text"
  • Select the Dzongkha keyboard to make it available, and also tick "Show input menu in menu bar"
  • Next, exit this window.
  • You should now be able to select the Dzongkha Keyboard from the menu bar:

3. OpenOffice for Dzongkha Editing

A. Download OpenOffice.org

Download the latest stable release of OpenOffice for Mac OS from: http://download.openoffice.org/other.html and save it to your hard drive.

It is a large program and may take some time to download....

Once the download has finished, run the .dmg file to install OpenOffice in your Applications folder

B. Enabling Complex Text and Dzongkha

Start the OpenOffice Writer (word processor) application.

From the menu bar select OpenOffice.org ► Preferences ► Options ► Language Settings ► Languages.

In the Language Settings dialog box under “Enhanced Language Support” enable the check box next to “Enabled complex text layout (CTL).” To work with Dzongkha in OpenOffice, enabling complex text layout (CTL) is required.

 

In the same dialog box, under “Default languages for documents” for  “CTL” select "Dzongkha" and then click on the "OK" button.

C. Setting Default Fonts for Dzongkha

From now each font select dialog will ask you to define two fonts: one font for used for "western" text (i.e. English) and one font for complex text, "CTL" (i.e. Dzongkha).

To set the Default fonts for Dzongkha:

  • Select: OpenOffice.org ► Preferences ► Options ► OpenOffice.org Writer ► Basic Fonts (CTL).
  • In the Basic Fonts (CTL) dialog choose "DDC Uchen" as your default CTL font for all options. (If you have not already installed this Dzongkha font it may be downloaded freely here.)
     
  • Then click on "OK"
     
  • You should now be able type Dzongkha or English text within OpenOffice simply by switching between Dzongkha and English keyboards on your computer system. The fonts will change automatically.
     
  • Also see:Using OpenOffice with Dzongkha.