[Update] Microsoft Launches Indic Input Tool For 10 Indian Languages

Google has had a Indic Transliteration page for quite a while, in fact it is even integrated into Orkut. Microsoft India, has finally come out with it’s own edition of a desktop & web version for Indic transliteration. It supports 6 Indian languages & the very interesting part about the web version is that it supports most of the commonly used browsers and . The following are the languages supported:

1. Bengali
2. Hindi
3. Kannada
4. Malayalam
5. Tamil
6. Telugu

There are 3 ways of using this:

1. A web version (bookmarklet):

Using the web version is very simple, all you need to do is add the bookmarklet for your preferred language to your browser and when you want to type in the Indic language, click on the bookmarklet and you’ll get an icon (marked in Red). Start typing and when you press ‘Space’ the word will converted, just like how Google’s version works. Screen shot:

Get the bookmarklets for Hindi

NOTE: You can toggle the transliteration ON & OFF while typing by clicking on the icon itself.

2. Desktop

The desktop version will add the option in your language preferences and you can:

• Download the desktop version for your language (link for Hindi, the rest)

• Enable the language bar from:

Control Panel –> Clock, Language & Region –> Change Keyboards or other input methods

• Follow the screen shot:

• Once done, you will see the Language bar on your desktop and it will have your language as an option, Hindi in my case, select it. Screen shot:

Now when you type you’ll get a drop down showing live transliteration as you type. Screen shot:

3. On the Microsoft’s Indic website:

Alternately, you can visit the Indic website and type the text in a box and it’ll give you with the transliterated text. Screen shot:

The browsers supported are:

1. Internet Explorer (8, 7 & 6)
2. Chrome
3. Opera
4. Safari
5. Firefox

Pretty impressive. Now I’m hoping that these languages will be added to the Microsoft Translation widget as well (on the sidebar of my blog.)

PS: I hope Raj Thackeray doesn’t notice the absence of Marathi.

The team behind the Indic tool has released an update and now support 4 more regional languages:

1. Marathi
2. Punjabi
3. Oriya
4. Gujrati

Thanks @vasudevg & @abhinaba for the heads up.