Faisaliat- فیصلیات

Reading Urdu in your computer:

Are you facing problems with reading Urdu text in your computer? One common problem can be that appropriate fonts are not installed in your computer and instead of Urdu words/ characters, you see strange figures. You may download Urdu fonts from locations given below:

1. Urdu Web: Download Fonts here. This will be a zipped (compressed) file. You can unzip it and run the installer file. Hopefully this will solve the problem. You can also find some other fonts on the same website by going one step higher.

2. Alternatively, BBC Urdu Font can be downloaded here. Run the executable (exe) file which will install font on your computer automatically.

Finally, you may search for Urdu fonts on Google and install them in your computer, but you may have to copy some font files in that case, on your computer’s fonts folder. Tricky?

Writing Urdu in your computer:

Now coming to writing Urdu in your computer. Well this can be a bit complicated as compared to installing fonts but still you can try before calling a technician for help.

There can be more than one way to write Urdu in your computer, e.g. you can use a special software for that like Inpage Urdu. However, you may not want to purchase a separate software for that. Secondly, specialized software may create files which can’t be opened with other software. For example, Inpage Urdu creates “.inp” files which you cannot open with most of the MS Office applications like MS Word or MS Excel. However, if you use the built in language support of Windows XP (and I am not sure but there must be such support in Windows 2K and older versions), you can use MS Office applications to write Urdu just as you write English. For this, follow the steps mentioned below:

1. First of all, enable Urdu language support in your computer.

2. Urdu can be written using many types of keyboards. The key combination used by Win XP by default can be complicated as you have to remember all keys, as to which key stands for what character. An easy way is to use Urdu Phonetic keyboard, which is the easiest, as an “Alif” is with an A, a “Bay” is with a B and so on. I am currently using keyboard called “Urdu Sautee 2″.

Detailed procedure for enabling Urdu and installing a Phonetic/ Sautee keyboard in your computer is given here or download a pdf here.

You may also find help here. Since it is an interactive forum, you can ask any questions if you need to.

I hope after passing through all this, you will be able to read and write Urdu in your computer. If you still have problems, you can write to me individually, with a detail of your problem.

Enjoy Urdu,

Faisal