PCs: using non-English languages
Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University
The Faculty's XP PCs can easily be set up to display and edit non-English languages.
How do I set up my PC to use a foreign language?
The steps are the same for all the languages Windows XP supports. Take Hindi for example. You want to display and edit files in Hindi:
- Start -> Settings -> Control Panel
- Regional and Language Options
- Languages tab -> Details...
- Add...
- Select the Input language and a suitable keyboard layout
- OK, then OK again
The language, Hindi in this case, will be added to the choices on the Taskbar on the bottom of your screen. Choose Hindi inside Word, for example, to create and edit Hindi language files.
I've done this, and I can read the files. Why can't other people?
The Windows standard is Unicode. Not all operating systems and software packages understand Unicode, and some languages are still encoded in different ways. Unicode was intended to solve these problems, and though it's not quite there yet, it's the best we've got.
None of this worked. What should I do?
If you can read the file but the person to whom you've sent it can't, the problem is at his end. Buying a new PC should fix this.