Unicode vs ANSI

Baraha supports Indian language text in two types of encodings - Unicode and ANSI. Most of the modern day applications support Unicode standard. If you are using Windows 10 or later, then you should consider using Unicode encoding instead of ANSI. ANSI is a legacy encoding and is provided for backward compatibility with older applications

Typing Unicode text:

• Use BarahaIME editor; Select Unicode encoding in settings
• Use BarahaPad which is a Unicode text editor
• Use Baraha editor; Copy/Export text in Unicode encoding

Typing ANSI text:

• Use BarahaIME editor; Select ANSI encoding in settings
• Use Baraha editor; Copy/Export text in ANSI encoding

Unicode:

In Unicode encoding, Baraha uses Unicode characters for the Indian language text. For displaying Indian language Unicode text, you may use any Unicode font that supports respective Indian language script. Windows provides default fonts Nirmala UI, Nirmal Text that supports all Indian scripts. Baraha provides Unicode fonts such as BRHKan01, BRHDev01, BRHTel01, ...

See:: Baraha fonts, Other fonts

Make sure the font you are using supports your Indian script. A font may not support all the ligatures of a script. Eventhough an operating system supports Unicode and Indian scripts, not all applications may support the same. If an application doesn't support Unicode at all, then you will see question marks. (). If an application does support Unicode, but currently chosen font does not support the Indian script, then you will see box(tofu) characters. (). A Unicode font may support Indian scripts, but may not properly implement OLT (Opentype Layout Tables). In such a case, you will see improper rendering of the text as shown in the example below.

ANSI:

In ANSI encoding, Baraha uses the English character positions in the font and replaces them with the Indian language characters (a technique used before Unicode). Therefore, if you view the ANSI text in a text editor such as Notepad, you will see junk text. The ANSI text is displayed correctly only if you use the proper Baraha ANSI font. Some programs such as PageMaker, CorelDraw, PhotoShop may not be supporting Unicode standard yet. You should use ANSI encoding in such cases.

Baraha provides ANSI fonts such as BRH Kannada, BRH Vijay, BRH Kailasam, BRH Bengaluru, BRH Sirigannada, BRH Amerikannada, BRH Devanagari, BRH Tamil Tab, BRH Telugu, BRH Malayalam, BRH Gujarati, BRH Gurumukhi, BRH Bengali, BRH Oriya