HOW TO ENABLE FARSI INPUT ON WINDOWS NT

Special Note for WinNT users: Before proceeding, please determine which version of Word you have. (Go Help>About Microsoft Word) While you can type Persian on WinNT with Word2000 and later, earlier versions of Word don't work. However, there are many excellent, free text editors you can download now such as notepad2

Downloads/Installation

You will need to download and install 2 things—the Farsi Support Patch and fonts.

Patch

DOWNLOAD the FarsiLang.exe patch to your desktop. You can get it right HERE .

Once you have found it (it is the icon with the name “FarsiLang”) on your desktop, simply click on it to INSTALL. It will install itself extremely fast, no questions asked, so in case you blink and think you missed something, don’t worry!

(At this point or any time hereafter, you can uninstall this by going StartàSettingsàControl PanelàAdd/Remove ProgramsàFarsi Language SupportàAdd/Remove ProgramsàOK.

The “Farsi Language Support” you see in the Add/Remove Programs list is what you just enabled, it wasn’t there before.)

Fonts

You will need to download and install some fonts.

Font Download and Installation

DOWNLOAD the Nazanin, Nazaninbold, Kamran, Kamranbold fonts to your desktop. (If you want more fonts, check out borna rayaneh. )

To INSTALL the fonts which are now on your desktop:

Do this: StartàSettingsàControl PanelàFonts. Click on Fonts. Now, drag each font, one by one into your open fonts folder. (You can drag them onto any spot in the Fonts folder and let go, Windows will put them in their proper places for you.) After installing all the fonts, you can close all the open windows.

In case you didn't catch that, here it is again in slow motion with lots of pictures.

Enabling Farsi Input

You will need to enable 2 things—Microsoft Office Language Settings and Input Language.

(But before you begin……

Take a look at your taskbar. (That’s the bar usually found at the bottom of your screen generally with Start on the left end and a clock on the right end.) To the left of the clock, you may see a small purple box with EN[glish] or you may depress it and see AR[abic] or JA[panese] or whatever other languages you may have already enabled. You will notice you do not yet see FA[rsi]. If you don’t see this purple box at all, that means you haven’t enabled input of any other languages so far and that's ok!)

Microsoft Office Language Settings. (For different versions of Office, method may be slightly different. Here are the directions for Office XP)

Do this: StartàProgramsàMicrosoft Office ToolsàMicrosoft Office Language Settings. Now, in the box on the left which says “Show controls and enable editing for:” , click on “Farsi”, then ApplyàOK

Input Language.

Do this: StartàSettingsàControl PanelàRegional SettingsàInput LocalesàAdd. Now click on “FA Farsi”, then ApplyàOK.

At this point, check out the purple box next to your clock. FA(rsi) is now an option! Congratulations! You now have the ability to type in Persian!!

Get a Map of the Keyboard (This is OPTIONAL)

Here’s something optional you can do: download a map of the keyboard. Microsoft calls it a “virtual keyboard” and you can easily get it from:

http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/viskeyboard.aspx

They supply good enough instructions there but the gist of it is that in order to make it display, you need to go Start > Programs > Microsoft Office Tools > Microsoft Visual Keyboard. (If you don’t see any Persian letters on the keys, you need to go to the purple box next to the clock and press FA(rsi).

If you press the virtual keyboard’s “Shift” button, it’ll show you more keys. There are no additional Persian keys on Ctrl or Alt.)

If you don’t feel like downloading the visual keyboard, you can just “hunt & peck” til you get used to it. It’s not too difficult! I’ve also made a picture of them (the regular keys and the shift keys) HERE for your convenience but make sure you have the above Nazanin font installed first or the picture will be inaccurate.

Attention!! Here are some very important notes concerning the keyboard and a few problem letters. It is essential to read this!

Numerals.

The numerals on the keyboard will only type Western style. Chances are, you won’t mind. If you do mind, you can do many things. Here are two:

1) Go to the tool bar at the top of Word and go Insert à Symbol . Then start scrolling down until you come to an Arabic Windows font or Unicode font and you may see the Arabic style number which you can just Insert. You can also make a Shortcut key for each of the numerals in case you'll be using them a lot.

2) Go Tools àOptions à Complex Scripts. Then look towards the bottom for "Numerals" and select "Context". That way Word will automatically figure out what style/language your numbers should be.

The “nim fasileh”,

also known as “1/2 space", "faaseleh-ye majaazi", "pseudo space”, “zero-width-non-joiner”, “no-width optional break”, etc, etc, etc!!

This is what you need when typing a word like “khaaneh-haa” (houses). It keeps the final “heh” of “khaaneh” from connecting with the initial “heh” of “haa” yet adds no space between the two. This is essential for typing words with prefixes, suffixes, and for compound words.

Here are two ways you can type this without resorting to re-mapping/reassigning keys:

1) Make sure Num Lock is on (that’s a key way over on the right above the keypad.) Press alt + 0 (that’s zero) + 157 (you must type these numbers on the key pad only.)

OR

2) In Word, go to the tool bar at the top of the screen . Now, go InsertàSymbolàSpecial CharactersàNo-width optional break and either insert immediately or create a Shortcut key. (Since this is a common character, I have made the shortcut key = alt + insert on my computer.)

OR

3) Get one of the free keyboards below and look for the key with ZWNJ!

The letter “yeh”.

There are 2 “yeh”'s. One on the "d" key and one on shift-x. Note that the fonts above "hide" the "yeh" with the two dots underneath (which is used in Arabic.)

Unicode-compliant keyboards

If you are using your text for anything other than to print on paper or use as an image, you need to go with Unicode standard encoding. Specifically, you'll need to make sure you're typing the Persian letters Yeh and Kaf, not the Arabic counterparts. It's convenient to get a (free) custom keyboard program such as Keyman 6 and then also download a free keyboard, either Persian (similar to the layout that comes with your Win98) or Farsi (a phonetic keyboard, for example, Beh will be on the "b" key as in English.)

Thanks for making it through my instructions. Hope they were reasonably clear?! Please look at the Tips section to get started with Microsoft Word.

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