Panjabi (Gurmukhi)

Recommended Fonts | Keyboard Layouts | Mac vs. PC vs. Linux Rendering Issues | Credits

Recommended Fonts

The SALRC recommends the following Gurmukhi fonts for Panjabi language pedagogy and Internet applications:

[Click on font names or samples for specific information and text samples for each font.]

AnmolUni (AnmolUni.ttf, AnmolUni-Heavy.ttf, AnmolUni-Bold.ttf)

Free download from the Punjabi Computing Resource Centre.

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Arial Unicode MS (arialuni.ttf)

A commercial font available as part of Microsoft's Office 2000/XP, FrontPage 2000, and Publisher 2002. To access this font, the 'International Support' feature must be installed. See Microsoft support for more details.

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Lohit Punjabi (lohit.punjabi.1.0.ttf)

Free download from the Punjabi Computing Resource Centre.

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Raavi (Raavi.ttf)

Commercial font included in Microsoft Windows XP.

Note: In order to use this font, "Supplemental Language Support" must be activated. See either Microsoft's support for XP, or click on "How to Install Fonts and Layouts" in the left navigation bar.

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Saab (saab.otf, saab_bold.otf)

Free download from the Punjabi Computing Resource Centre.

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Input Software and Keyboard Layouts

For typing in Gurmukhi on Windows platforms, the SALRC recommends the following options:

  • Windows 2000/XP Keyboard Layouts: Microsoft Windows 2000/XP offer full support for typing with Gurmukhi keyboard layouts in its multilingual support. These may be accessed through Control Panel > System > Languages, and are an optional installation (Click on "How to Install Fonts and Layouts" in the left navigation bar for more information). The keyboard may be viewed with the On-screen Keyboard Viewer (Start > Program Files > Utilities > Accessibility > On Screen Keyboard). See Microsoft's Keyboard Layouts page to view various layouts available for Windows XP/2000/Server 2003. Microsoft's Keyboard Layout Creator allows the user to create a new keyboard, if the default keyboard layout is undesirable.
  • AnmolUni's Unicode Keyboard Layouts: In addition to the download of his AnmolUni and AnmolUniBani fonts, Kulbir S. Thind has also provided downloads for three Unicode keyboard layouts for Panjabi Gurmukhi that conform to DrChatrikWeb, GurbaniLipi, and Asees font formats. He has also provided instructions on installing and using these layouts.
  • OpenOffice.org: A free, open-source office suite project that is Unicode-savvy, OpenType enabled, and able to run on Linux/Sparc, Mac OS X (with X11), and all modern Windows platforms, including Windows 95.
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    Rendering issues: Mac vs. PC vs. Linux

    The fonts recommended on this page have been tested for functionality on PCs running Windows XP/2000/2003/NT. They are unsuitable for use with Macintosh computers, because they make use of OpenType technology, developed jointly by Microsoft and Adobe, for displaying vowel signs (matras) and ligatures appropriately. While OS X also recognizes OpenType layout tables, it uses a different rendering engine (ATSUI), and these fonts are written for Microsoft's engine (called Uniscribe).

    For Gurmukhi computing, Mac users (OS X 10.3 and above) are advised to install the optional Asian Languages Support package, found in the first OS X installation CD/DVD. This will install the "Gurmukhi MT" font, and enable Gurmukhi and Gurmukhi-QWERTY keyboards. The user will now be able to view Panjabi-encoded websites using Safari and to produce Unicode documents using TextEdit. Unfortunately, other third-party browsers and word processing software do not currently recognize this font.

    These fonts are compatible with most distributions of Linux running Gnome or KDE. Most major distributions also offer or include free Punjabi-language packages, which include keyboards and fonts.

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    Additional Resources and Credits

    The content and design of this page rely largely Alan Wood's Unicode Fonts and WAZU JAPAN's Gallery of Unicode Fonts; these sites are excellent and up-to-date resources to find fonts, text editors, browsers, and other Unicode resources. The statistics and other font details appearing on this page have been used with their permission. Visit Penn State's South Asian Computing Information pages for additonal Unicode support. Sunit Singh (University of Chicago) has provided invaluable assistance and guidance in the creation of this page.

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