How to Type Gujarati and Hindi with Phonetic Keyboards in Mac OS X

This page gives you instructions on how you can install my Gujarati Phonetic keyboard layout (and Hindi Phonetic keyboard layout) on a Mac OS X computer. With the completion of this page, I now have the Phonetic keyboard layouts for the 3 major operating systems: Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Before we push forward, I have some disappointing news for Mac users. Mac is quite different from both Windows and Linux. Mac is handles Unicode scripting differently and you may notice some on-screen rendering issues when Windows-compatible fonts are used in Mac OS. I was able to install Shruti on Mac OS X (required restart) and type Gujarati in Microsoft Office Word. However, the on-screen rendering was flawed for certain vowel signs. However, after saving the document and opening it in Word for Windows, it displayes correctly. Interestingly, I could not locate Mac's native Gujarati MT font in Microsoft Word. Not all fonts are incompatible though. Fonts like Lohit Gujarati, Lohit Hindi, e-Gujarati-OT, e-Nagari OT, Sakal Bharati, and others work great. You can download these fonts on my downloads page: Download Gujarati and Hindi Unicode Fonts.

If you type Gujarati in a text editor or other native Mac apps, you will be able to open them in Windows and read the text, and vice versa. Moreover, typing Gujarati in Mac involve the same rules as in Windows and Linux so you don't have to learn a different method.

Let's begin installing the Gujarati Phonetic keyboard layout in Mac OS X.

1. Install Gujarati and Hindi Font

First, we need to install the Gujarati font in Mac, which is not installed by default. These instructions are for Snow Leopard so your instructions might vary slightly depending on your version.

a) Insert your Mac OS X installation CD or DVD and click on Optional Installs.

b) Double-click Optional Installs.mpkg to execute the installer.

c) Select the destination where you'll be installing and click continue.

d) Check Additional Fonts and click continue to install. This will install Gujarati font and the Devanagari font.

2. Download and Install the Gujarati and Hindi Phonetic Keyboard Layout

a) Download the file Gujarati-Phonetic-Mac.zip (or Hindi-Phonetic-Mac.zip), which contains the phonetic mapping, from my downloads page: Downloads.
b) Unzip the files on your desktop or wherever you choose and you'll get 1 file called Gujarati-Phonetic.keylayout (or Hindi-Phonetic.keylayout). Mac may actually uncompress the files automatically for you in your download folder if you use Safari to download it.
c) Copy the files to either /Library/Keyboard Layouts or ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts folder.

3. Add the Layouts to Your Input Methods

a) Lastly, you need to enable the layouts so you can select them from the status bar. Go to system preferences.

b) Open Language & Text.

c) Click on the Input Sources tab, then select Gujarati Phonetic and Hindi Phonetic keyboard layouts from the input methods selection. Once you select them, these layouts will be available from the input selection icon in the status bar at the top-right, as shown in Step 4.

4. Select the Layout to Start Typing

a) To start typing, click on the keyboard icon in the status bar to show your selected keyboard layouts.

b) If you ever forget how the keyboard is mapped, select Show Keyboard Viewer and you will get an onscreen keyboard. You can also click on this keyboard to type.

c) And here is a screenshot of Gujarati being typed in the native text editor application.