The information in this article applies to:

• Windows XP Professional
• Windows XP Home Edition

Windows XP does not support Urdu language by default unless the following steps are carried out.

Adding Urdu Keyboard

1. Open "Regional and Language Options" from Control Panel OR from Start Menu -> Run "intl.cpl".
2. Choose Language tab.
3. Check the "Install files for Complex Script and right-to-left languages (Including Thai)".
4. Press Apply to proceed.
5. Click "Details" button.
6. Click on "Add" button from "Input Language" list box select Urdu.
7. Press OK

Now you can type Urdu text after selecting it from the taskbar.
Note: Urdu has 6 additional characters in its keyboard more than the Arabic keyboard.

Urdu support for Windows XP

Urdu Shift Keyboard Layout:

Supported fonts for Urdu:

1. Microsoft Sans Serif
2. Tahoma

An Overview of Unicode

Content

1. How Unicode came into being
2. What Unicode is
3. Unicode is not.
4. What about sorting?
5. Unicode supports the languages of Pakistan
6. Conclusion

How Unicode came into being

• Characters are represented by numbers
• Codepage - an organized manner to arrange characters
• Conflicting codepage definitions prevented multilingual documents and data exchange
• Unicode (Universal, Uniform and Unique Coding scheme) was developed to solve the multilingual document problems
   

For more information please visit www.unicode.org

What Unicode is

• A stable encoding system that is useful for global communications

Unicode is not.
 

Specific to a particular writing style. It is not a Naskh codepage
A linguistically accurate encoding system, e.g. some "letters" in an alphabet may take more than one Unicode code point
A sorting mechanism

What about sorting?

• Example:

• Urdu -
• Sindhi -

• Microsoft's approach to linguistically sensitive sorting

Unicode supports the languages of Pakistan

• In the event a letter is found to be missing from Unicode, there is a process in place for you to provide information to get the missing letter added

Conclusion

• Unicode provides the best opportunity for multilingual documents today
• Unicode support is already available with Windows Xp and Office Xp
   

Key Word:

• Urdu Language, Urdu Support

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