do-it-yourself

INSTALLING INDIAN LANGUAGES ON YOUR COMPUTER

Step-by-step procedure for installation of various Indian languages in Windows XP and Vista with Office 2007

Damodar Joshi

Installation
Step-by-step procedure to install Indian languages on the Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002

he Indian Languages and IT article published in July 2009 issue of Electronics for You gave readers links to many websites from where they could download the software, patches and fonts for installing Indian languages on their computer systems. Here we discuss the step-by-step procedure for installation of various Indian languages. Microsoft has dedicated a separate website (www.bhashaindia.com) to Indian languages. This site gives the required language interface packs (LIPs) for Windows-XP, Windows Vista, MS-Office 2003 and MS-Office 2007 editions. Using the given LIPs, you can install many Indian languages in Windows XP and Vista with Office 2007.

Fig. 1: List showing multiple languages

System requirements
You should have the genuine Windows operating system installed on your computer. If your system is running a pirated copy of Windows, you cannot download these LIPs. You need a minimum of 512MB RAM and sufficient disk space to download and install the required LIPs. Windows LIP file size is around 2.6 MB and MS-Office LIP file is 15.5 MB. All these LIPs work on a 32-bit operating system only. Keep Windows installation CD-/ DVD-ready if the existing Windows operating system is not properly installed and some components are missing.

with Service Pack 2 and 512MB RAM is as below: 1. Go to www.bhashaindia.com website 2. Click Download in Tools menu option 3. You will see a list of Indian languages on the screen. Under Windows XP LIP option, click the language that you want to install. Then the website checks whether you have the genuine Windows installed on your computer (this takes a few minutes). Download is allowed only if Windows installed is genuine 4. Press Download button and save the LIP file on your computer 5. After download, go to the location on your computer where you

have saved this file and double-click it. Installation starts by showing one pop-up box 6. If you have downloaded multiple LIP files, a list of languages is shown. From the list, select the desired language. If you have downloaded a single LIP file, only that will be shown. Select this language and press Next button (refer Fig. 1) 7. In the next menu, select I accept the licence terms and press Next 8. The next box shows you the readme file information. Here also, press Next followed by Install button 9. Check the box against Change my display language to. Do not select Apply changes to my system accounts as this may change your system accounts into regional language 10. Now, reboot your system 11. Press Start button. You will see the menu in the installed language With this installation, only the display is changed to the required language. You can see the menus in that language but you cannot type in that language. You have to install the language for input as described in the next section.
w w w. e f y m ag . co m

1 2 0 s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0 e l e c t ro n i c s f o r yo u

do-it-yourself
Installing the language for input
1. Go to Control Panel, select Regional and Language options 2. Select LanguagesDetails SettingsAdd 3. Select Keyboard option. Add Input Language window appears 4. Select your desired language from this window Now your desired language is installed for input also. The language tool bar will appear on your computer screen. Select the desired language from the tool bar. Now you can type in this language in MS Word also. You can install many LIPs (language interface packs) on one computer, but only one language at a time will be used for displaying the Windows menus. You can change from one language to another by selecting the desired language from the menu. Thereafter, reboot the system or log off the machine to effect the changes. the language pack for Office. Here Office means MS Word, MS Excel and MS Power Point. This language pack does not apply to other office products. With this installation, your menus in default MS Word (in English) will not immediately change to the installed regional language. You have to change the Windows display language to the one you have chosen for MS Office. For example, if you have installed the MS Office pack for Telugu language, you should select the Office appears in English Removing the Windows display LIPs from system. 1. From Control Panel option, select Regional and Language options 2. Select Languages option 3. Press Install/Uninstall Languages 4. In the next menu, select Remove Languages and the languages that you want to remove 5. Press Next button 6. Press Remove button

Fig. 2: MS-Word menu in Telugu

Changing from one language to another for display

1. Go to Control Panel, select Regional and Language options 2. Select LanguagesDetails SettingsAdd 3. Select Keyboard option. Add Input Language window appears 4. Select your desired language from this window 5. Restart your system to make the changes take effect

Windows display language to Telugu. Then only MS Office will be shown in Telugu language (see Fig. 2). To type in Telugu, select the input language to Telugu from the language tool bar. Now the input language is Telugu and the menus in the Word are also in Telugu, but you will still get the help in English language only. We have installed Telugu, Marathi and Hindi office LIPs on MS-Office 2007 under Windows XP operating system and found working well.

7. A message appears stating that the selected language is removed successfully and you have to restart the computer

Limitations
Only those 80 per cent of the Windows menus which are mostly used, are changed to the installed regional language. It is not 100 per cent changeover to the installed regional language. Third-party installed software is shown in English only. You still get help in English only. Also, you cannot install more than ten language packs at a time.

Installing the MS-Office in regional language on your computer

There are different LIPs available for MS-Office. Download the required Office language pack from www. bhashaindia.com website. This website provides office LIPs for MS-Office 2007 and MS-Office 2003 only. Double-click the regional language option, say, Telegu, to download the setup program and accept the Microsoft terms and conditions for using this pack. Press Continue. This successfully installs
w w w. e f y m ag . co m

Uninstallation
If you are not interested in keeping these installed language packs on your computer, you can remove them as follows: Removing the LIP for MS-Office. 1. Select Control Panel from Start menu 2. Choose Add or Remove Programs option. Then the list of installed programs will be displayed 3. Select the office language pack that is to be removed 4. Press Uninstall button 5. The program is removed permanently and now your menu for MS-

Precautions
Take the backup of the important data files on your computer before trying this installation. In case you are unable to operate on regional language settings and/or are not immediately able to revert back to English Language, this backup will be useful for you and you will not lose your valuable data.
The author is a technical officer at Computer Centre, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Tarnaka, Hyderabad

e l e c t ro n i c s f o r yo u s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 0 1 2 1