How to convert Tamil text to Unicode?

How to effect Unicode Conversion of Tamil text (in Tscii)?

There are a few 'important notes' at the bottom of this page. Please do read them too.

Modes of Unicode conversion and steps involved in each of them

To very quickly convert your text, just click the 'Convert text below to Unicode' button or click on 'File ->Convert to Unicode ->Convert immediately' and see your converted text immediately in Internet Explorer. If you need more options while converting, read ahead.

1. Simple mode of conversion (Basic version of Azhagi allows this conversion mode alone)

Type* out your Tamil text in Azhagi.
Click on 'File' menu of Azhagi.
Click on 'Convert to Unicode -> Choose conversion mode before converting'.
In the 'Unicode Converter' screen that opens, click on the button 'Plain Text' and follow the instructions. In general, you will have to just press 'OK', 'Yes' and 'OK' in the three screens which follow one after the other.
Your Tamil text (in Tscii) will get converted to Unicode and show up in your browser (say 'Internet Explorer') as an html page.
You can copy/paste this Unicode text to wherever you wish to - Blog, Email client, Word processor, Search Engine (google, yahoo!) etc.

(*) Instead of typing, you can also paste Tamil text (in Tscii encoding) from an external source on to the Tamil text area of Azhagi.

Note:

a) In [Basic] version of Azhagi, only the 'Plain Text' button will be effective.

b) In [Standard] version of Azhagi, all buttons will be effective except 'Convert Multiple Files'. c) With the utilities available in Azhagi' unicode converter, you can convert not only Tamil text typed in Azhagi but also external Html/Text/JavaScript files (containing Tscii Tamil text), which advanced modes you can get to learn below.
d) To know in further more detail about Azhagi's Unicode converter like 'how to convert formatted Tscii text', 'what is UTF-16' etc., click here.

2. Advanced modes of conversion (not all modes are possible with all versions of Azhagi):

Start 'Azhagi' and click on 'File -> Convert to Unicode -> Choose conversion mode before converting' to open Azhagi's converter tool. Note that the converter converts text which is originally in Tscii Tamil only and not any other encoding. Once you get your Tscii text converted to Unicode, you can copy/paste this Unicode text to wherever you wish to - Blog, Email client, Word Processor, Search Engine (google, yahoo! etc.)

Azhagi 'unicode converter' can directly read an html file (or .js or .txt or any other file you specify) and convert it into its unicode equivalent. You use the 'Choose HTML file' and 'Convert HTML file' to effect this conversion. To view the contents of the loaded html file, click the check box next to the file name display area. If the Tamil content of the html file appears as junk in the display, click on 'Refresh text area' to rectify it.

You may try converting the Sample files (azUniSample1.html and azUniSample2.html) which you may find in 'C:\Program Files\AzhagiNo.1\azDocs\uniConverters' directory. You may also find the converted unicodes files (with all formatting intact) as azUniSample1-utf8.html , azUniSample1-utf16.html , azUniSample2-utf8.html and azUniSample2-utf16.html .

Azhagi's 'unicode converter' also provides a text area to hold the tscii Tamil text - as Plain text or HTML text. As you click the appropriate 'Convert' button ('Plain text' or 'HTML text), the text in the text area is converted to Unicode and presented to you as an HTML file (you can choose the file name), for quick and easy information interchange.

The text area can be populated in 3 different ways:

By default, the text area will carry the text (if any) contained in azhagi's Tamil text area

You can copy Tscii Tamil text (non-html) from any external source (say an MS-Word document) and paste it in the text area. You can also open an html file, copy the entire html content and paste it in the text area.

Tip : While pasting from external source, if the pasted Tamil text appears as junk, click on 'Refresh text area' to get it displayed in Tamil.

You can type any new Tamil text in the text area using azhagi's 'Direct typing' mode. You can also type your text in html format with html tags.

Tip : When you type just plain Tamil text, always click on 'Plain Text' button to effect conversion. When you type your text in html format, always click on 'HTML Text' button to effect conversion. The results might be unpredictable if you do not follow this instruction.

Azhagi can also effect 'Batch processing' - i.e. convert multiple html files (*.html or *.js or *.txt or *.*) at the same time. Click on 'Convert multiple files (Batch Process)' button and you can achieve this. Its a powerful and highly flexible batch processor giving you the option to set/choose various atrributes, like :

- Source directory

- Destination directory

- Type of files to be converted

and

- Suffix for the converted files' names

Important Notes:

To convert your text typed in Azhagi's main editor window (which is always in Tscii) to Unicode, you may not be required to enable Unicode fully.

Azhagi's convertor may work in most Win98 systems too.

Once you have generated Unicode Tamil text using Azhagi's Unicode convertor, you can copy/paste the Tamil text to any external application/window like Wordpad, Outlook Express, Blogs, Google/Yahoo Email Message windows, online groups (like http://groups.google.com/group/illam or http://groups.google.com/group/azhagi) etc.

If the pasted text does not appear correctly in certain applications like MS-Word, Notepad etc., then Unicode might have to be enabled fully.

To get to know how to enable Unicode fully, click here.

Document version 5.3