THL Toolbox > Fonts & Related Issues > Tibetan Scripts, Fonts & Related Issues > Using Tibetan in Macintoshes > Tibetan Input Tools for Macintosh

Tibetan Input Tools for Macintosh

Contributor(s): THL Staff, Steven Weinberger.

Simply having a Tibetan font does not mean that you can now use Tibetan in a computer. You also need a keyboard or input mechanism to efficiently type in Tibetan, and you also need that input mechanism to work with the various types of software you typically use. One of the problems concerning the use of Tibetan fonts in digital contexts has been the limited and non-standard nature of Tibetan script input tools and software. Usually keyboards are also platform-specific, so that they only work for Windows, Mac, or Macintosh. This page is focused on the Macintosh operating system. For other input tools, see Tibetan Input Tools for Linux, Tibetan Input Tools for Windows, and Tibetan Input Tools for Browsers or Cross-Platform. To read about the general methods of Tibetan keyboards - such as Wylie, Sambhota, etc. - please see Tibetan Input System Principles. To read about using Tibetan Unicode in the Macintosh OS in general, see Using Tibetan in Macintoshes.

Mac OS X 10.5.0 (Leopard) comes with three keyboard layouts:

• Tibetan - Wylie - (EWTS 2.02)
• Tibetan - Otani
• Tibetan - QWERTY

To use these:

1. Pull down the Apple Menu and go to System Preferences > International and click the “Input Menu” tab
2. Scroll down to Tibetan and click the box next to the keyboard you want.
3. Close the International dialog box
4. In the Finder menu bar at the top of the screen, you will see an American flag. Click on it and point to the icon for Tibetan that you selected in the System Preferences > International window. When you type, Tibetan letters will appear.