Are you using a different browser than Microsoft's Internet Explorer?
If you see what appears to be gibberish directly above this sentence, then you most likely do not have the correct Tibetan Language fonts installed. Because most computer software does not recognize the Tibetan alphabet or allow it to be properly displayed, the folks at the Tibetan Computing Resource Center (TCRC) have created a font based solution. This solution codes a variety of characters (more than those in the standard English alphabet) so that when displayed in this font they appear to be letters of the Tibetan alphabet. So for those of us without Tibetan language support, we can simply download and install these fonts and read the encoded characters as Tibetan.
If you would like to download and install the fonts on your computer, please follow the instructions below for installation on Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP.
- Download the TCRC Bod-Yig font, the TCRC Youtso Web font, and the TCRC Youtso font and place them in your C drive.
- Click on the "Start" button (usually in the bottom left corner of the screen).
- If you are using Windows XP, choose the "Control Panel" icon. Otherwise, choose "Settings" and then "Control Panel".
- With the Control Panel open, find the "Fonts" folder and doubleclick it to open it (if you are using Windows XP and by default have the Category View, choose the "Appearances and Themes" option and then choose "Fonts" on the left hand side under "See Also").
- You should now have the Fonts folder open. Click once on "File" and then "Install New Font..".
- You will see a new window open up. Select the folder/drive into which you downloaded the fonts(the C Drive, by default).
- The names of these two fonts will appear in the upper window. Choose "Select All" and the "OK".
- Congratulations! Your fonts should be successfully installed and, if you refresh the page, you should see Tibetan at the top of the page.
If this did not successfully install the fonts, there may be another problem. Please feel free to contact the Webmaster to help troubleshoot your problem.
If you would like to be able to use these fonts with Microsoft Word or other applications, and want a better solution than just these fonts, please consider downloading the TCRC Bod-Yig keyboard handler.
Yes, I am not using Microsoft Internet Explorer
I still can't see the Tibetan, even after I install the correct fonts. As far as we can tell, most browsers unfortunately do not render Tibetan correctly or well. The jury is still out on why this is the case, but we seem to think it's because most browsers do not recognize Tibetan as a usable language (which Internet Explorer does).
That's the quick answer, here's the long answer. Basically, the simplest way to have characters from a non-english script to display on a web page is to install a font for that language (on your computer) and then have your browser recognize characters from that language as being best represented in that font. Then, as long as you have that font installed, your browser will know to display it in that font and hence render it correctly. Since most browsers other than Internet Explorer do not recognize Tibetan as a language (or do not have the time to do the work to code it as a language), most browsers will not display correctly any language they don't recognize.
Aha, you might say - why not just code the language as a series of Unicode characters, rather than in the font? We tried that, and there are two important reasons why it's not the best solution. First, our staff use an application (developed by the Tibetan Computing Resource Center (TCRC) in conjunction with the Tibetan Government in Exile) that uses this font based solution, so to recode each character as its Unicode equivalent would be a ridiculous excercise each time we wanted to post something online in Tibetan. Secondly, and more importantly, there is no way to join Unicode characters together in HTML like there is on a printed page. Since every vowel in Tibetan is created by joining a consonant character and the respective vowel character, and since a number of the consonant symbols are made up of two discrete consonant characters, there is no way for the Tibetan on the screen to look like the Tibetan on the page when you use Unicode. So we decided to go with this elegant font based solution instead, and apologize if this section does not look like Tibetan.
While not an expert on this subject, the webmaster likes to think he's fairly well-versed in displaying Tibetan on screen and online. If you see any errors (glaring or otherwise) in the above text, please let him know and he'll do his best to rectify it. Similarly, if you happen to have a better solution, he's all ears. You can reach him at webmaster@savetibet.org. He thanks you in advance for any elucidation on this topic, and apologizes if you feel hampered by the need to switch to Internet Explorer to be able to read this Tibetan.
