Welcome
নমস্কার! नमस्ते! ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ! സ്വാഗതം! வணக்கம்! నమస్కారము!
Welcome to the Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool Blog. We intend this blog to be a place where we share information regarding the Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool. The posts on this blog will be written by people on the team that developed this product. We welcome you to provide feedback/suggestions in the comments section of this blog.
We developed this tool because we felt that for many languages (Indic Languages among them), entering text on a PC is difficult today. Though technology is improving and there are many innovative products out there today, most products have some barrier – e.g. some require users to know a fixed transliteration scheme; some others allow free form transliteration, but work only on webpages etc. We wanted to see if we can bring free form transliteration to the desktop such that it can be used to enter text in any application on the PC, and that is a key focus of the Indic Language Input Tool.
Currently we support six languages – Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. Please do use both the web version and the desktop version & provide us feedback. We hope this will contribute towards greater usage of Indian Languages in computing, and creation of more content/applications in these languages.
You can expect to see periodical posts on this blog providing tips on using the product and other topics pertinent to input of Indian Language Text on a computer.
Thank You!
Thiru
Comments
Anonymous
December 15, 2009
I wasnt able to download tamil Indic language tool...Any other site hosting it?Anonymous
December 15, 2009
thats gr8..... 'm gonna try this now...Anonymous
December 15, 2009
i like it very muzh... thanks for creating such a tool... wrote a detailed blog post in it..... http://winspark.net/2009/12/16/all-about-microsoft-indic-language-input-tool/Anonymous
December 16, 2009
Google already launched this tool long back, and it is amazing!!! http://www.google.com/ime/transliterationAnonymous
December 16, 2009
Hi,Is there an API available that will help the web version for Tamil to be used in 3rd party websites. And does Microsoft permit such usage?Anonymous
December 16, 2009
Hi Venkatarangan, We do not provide an API at the moment. Please watch this blog for updates. Thanks. Rahul. (Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool Team)Anonymous
December 16, 2009
The comment has been removedAnonymous
December 16, 2009
@DarkLord Google launched their IME only few days ago whereas MS did a public demo on Nov 26 (http://www.thehindu.com/2009/11/26/stories/2009112654490500.htm). A "limited tech preview" was available at http://specials.msn.co.in/indic/ILIT_main.html but it closed by the time I reached. I have been waiting for the public release since that day. I tried installing Google IME. I donno what's your definition of amazing but it din't install. It gave an error saying I need to be administrator and failed, even though I am an admin. Microsoft ILIT just works! Great job!Anonymous
December 17, 2009
Any idea when there would be support for Tablet PC Input for Indic languages?Anonymous
December 17, 2009
This is great. I am dying to have my Windows 7 in Telugu LIP. This tool is just great and compensates my desire to some extent. Thanks for your efforts. Anyways, is there any news on Telugu LIP for Windows 7? Request you to make it available soon.Anonymous
December 17, 2009
@IndicInput Apologies for spamming.. I didn't know that this is an official blog of ILIT till now. You can remove my posts after GoogleFail get his answer. @GoogleFail Not sure about your error. Google IME installed in seconds on my vista premium. ILIT didn't even download from Chrome. Anyways, just because something insalled in seconds doesn't make it great. I would appreciate the UI of ILIT but, it is not the only thing that matters.. Google IME is feature rich, and user-friendly.. To select between suggestions, I can use Tab in Google IME easily. With ILIT, I have to press up/down which are located quite off in the keyboard. Google IME suggests the complete words as I type the prefix, which is surely an amazing feature IMO.Anonymous
December 17, 2009
Rohit: Watch this blog for updates on our future releases. Jagannath: Thank you for your feedback. I'm afraid I'll have to tell you the same thing Rob Margel(http://blogs.msdn.com/robmar) told you - Microsoft does not publish LIP release schedules in advance. Sorry. DarkLord: We have tested our website on all 5 browsers that we list as supported, Chrome being among them. When you click the Install Now button, you are redirected to the Getting Started page and a small new window opens. This small window will say "Show all downloads" after a few seconds. Click on this text to open the downloads tab and you will see the appropriate ILIT installer listed there. Thanks. Rahul. (Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool Team)Anonymous
December 19, 2009
Quillpad is the best one for this - been using for a long time and no complaints: http://quillpad.com/ And +1 for the Phonetic Translation Library: http://phtranslator.sourceforge.net/ nothing beats it in the features IMO. It comes with fully customizable alphabet tables and edit controls, not to mention the support for 10 languages.Anonymous
December 19, 2009
I notice Marathi and Gujrati are absent. Considering the number of speakers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India#Official_languages), MS should make them available as soon as possible. The whole input scenario becomes easy if you use a phonetic keyboard layout (at least for Devnagari script languages-dunno about other languages since I can't speak them). Sometime back Microsoft had a Phonetic Input tool for Windows XP on BhashaIndia.com that worked well but it was pulled for some reason. Good to see Microsoft getting into it again and hopefully this time things will be stick around longer. Also, people need to be made aware of how easy it is to create a keyboard layout of their own using Keyboard Layout Creator. I created this keyboard layout for Devnagari some time back; it works very well for me (free to share and modify): http://cid-5b7c6992de8cc9f7.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Devnagari%20Phonetic%20Keyboard%20Layout.zip. With a simple keyboard layout of their own, anyone create input in their language on the web or in desktop apps.Anonymous
December 19, 2009
Btw does this beta expire? I hate expiring software.Anonymous
December 20, 2009
Hi Tuxplorer, We do plan to extend support to more languages in stages. Please track this blog for updates. No, this beta does not expire. Rahul. (Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool Team)Anonymous
January 02, 2010
pradeepviswav, Quillpad http://quillpad.com/ and Phonetic Translation Library supports tamil Indic language http://phtranslator.sourceforge.net/ As someone posted earlier this second one has more documentation and many features. You should be able to create your own mappings and do some more things. Good one.Anonymous
February 27, 2010
From the terms and conditions of the Microsoft indic language input tool I found the following statement. "You may use this script only for non-commercial uses such as research, academic use or personal use. Any use other than this shall need prior written permission from Microsoft. Microsoft reserves the right to alter, modify, change or remove the script or any parts thereof without prior notice. Any use other than this shall need prior written permission from Microsoft. " How do we get prior written permission from Microsoft? Please advice, Thank you, PrakashAnonymous
July 12, 2010
how can i use this indic language translator in my asp applicationAnonymous
October 11, 2010
Thanks for lovely tool, Please provide API of this? So we can implement it in our projects ?