Danny's Weblog

This section is for articles which relate mainly to the Cambodian language, often referred to as Khmer. As with the rest of my site, the articles are presented in *reverse* chronological order. Also, they tend to represent things which I have discovered or speculated about which *supplement* the standard materials: this is not intended to present a free teach-yourself-Khmer course.

In particular, note that I originally focused on using the "Limon-type" fonts for Cambodian, as they were far more commonly used than Unicode. Although I believe Limon is still much more common, support for Unicode is so much better these days that more recent posts focus on Unicode. To get a balanced picture, you should read the entire folder.

You may also be interested in articles which refer to Asian languages in general: Asia/Language-misc

2008 Jul 01 [ Tue ]

The "khmerconverter" utility to convert eg Limon to Unicode

The description sounded interesting: Limon and similar non-Unicode ("USA International") fonts to Khmer Unicode and vice versa. I've written about the Limon issues before, eg here: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Asia/Cambodia/Khmer-language/windowssetup01.html]

I had found khmerconverter while looking around in Ubuntu Synaptic Package Manager. I had installed it a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't see where the installer had put the launcher and didn't bother proceeding. Today I happened to see the launcher (in Applications - Accessories) and tried it, but it appeared to do nothing.

I found the name of the executable in the launcher and was able to do "man khmerconverter", which helped by showing command-line options, but not enough (the spec for the formats is not clear). On the web I found: www.khmeros.info [http://www.khmeros.info/drupal/?q=en/download/converter] which suggested that the app had a gui wrapper.

After a while it occurred to me that I should try running the app from the console instead of the desktop. This revealed that it was complaining about the absence of the "tix" library for Tk. I found tix in Synaptic and installed it (no DVD necessary): clicking the launcher then brought up the gui. (It seems to me that if an app fails with an error message, the launcher, or the windowing environment, or something, should detect that and wait for you to read the error message instead of immediately closing the window. Oh well.)

Hmm. This is the first time I've seen where a Synaptics app has clearly failed to install a necessary package.

So how can you try it out? You can download Limon and ABC "legacy" fonts here: www.everyday.com.kh [http://www.everyday.com.kh/khmerfont/khmerfont.asp]

This page is also useful: www.cambodia.org [http://www.cambodia.org/fonts/] with eg "How to type Khmer Unicode", a PDF document, unfortunately in Khmer and without any keyboard layout diagram for people trying to use a non-Khmer-Unicode keyboard. (There may be some reference to such a thing, but I was barely able to puzzle out more than a few words here and there.)

After I had installed the fonts (by unzipping them to my /home/dannyw/.fonts folder), Firefox was able to view www.everyday.com.kh properly. When I checked the HTML source, it does indeed handle fonts in css, and the css specifies EOT fonts (ie the special downloadable font format for IE). So although Firefox can't handle those, it apparently knows it can default to the (newly-installed) TTF fonts by name. OTOH, the page layout was still all screwed up: all the text was scrunched into the right column. I was able to set Firefox to View - Page style - No style. This made it possible to select a block of several sentences of text from everyday.com, and I could copy it into OpenOffice.

Then I could save as an OpenOffice .odt file, which is apparently the native format for khmerconverter. The output looked OK as far as I could see, ie the glyphs appeared to match – I'm not claiming to be able to *edit* Khmer text!

So while I've hardly tested khmerconverter exhaustively, it does appear to be useful.

Here are some blocks of test text so you can judge the performance of khmerconverter (and check whether my page and your browser setup work together – in particular check whether your browser is set to override font specs – d'oh!)

Original Limon (only looks right if "Limon S1" font is installed on your system – I'm not bothering to set up an EOT font spec here):

smaCikRBwT§sPaéf mYyRkumEdl manKña 77nak;kalBIéf¶cnÞ)ancab; epþImdMeNIrkarbBaÄb; karKaMRTrdæa Pi)aléfcMeBaHsMeNIrbs;rdæaPi)al km<úCaEdlesñIdak;R)asaTRBHvihar cUleTAkñúgbBa¢IebtikPNÐBiPBelak .kaEstDweNsðinrbs;éfraykarN_ fasmaCikRBwT§sPaTaMgenaH)an

Unicode version (should display OK if *any* Unicode font on your system can handle the Khmer group of Unicode codes): សមាជិកព្រឹទ្ធសភាថៃ មួយក្រុមដែល មានគ្នា ៧៧នាក់កាលពីថ្ងៃចន្ទបានចាប់ ផ្តើមដំណើរការបញ្ឈប់ ការគាំទ្ររដ្ឋា ភិបាលថៃចំពោះសំណើរបស់រដ្ឋាភិបាល កម្ពុជាដែលស្នើដាក់ប្រាសាទព្រះវិហារ ចូលទៅក្នុងបញ្ជីបេតិកភណ្ឌពិភពលោក ។កាសែតឌឹណេស្ហិនរបស់ថៃរាយការណ៍ ថាសមាជិកព្រឹទ្ធសភាទាំងនោះបាន

PKD example (just so you can see if you have PKD installed – I was too lazy to figure out the phonetcs for the whole of the above text): kNom At dIG te

[Single-story view] [/Asia/Cambodia/Khmer-language] [permanent link]
Responses: 0 [View/add responses]

I hope this information was useful. There may be a great deal more information on this site that is relevant to what you need. Take a look at the "site map" display at left; you can click on a topic to see many recent items on that topic.

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About How this site is organized and what it's for Weblog start page The start page contains the most recent 15 articles. Home page The main home page of my website, not my weblog. Currently not used. ------------------ Articles by month Click here to get all the articles for a particular month. 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Listing of all articles by date Flavours There's more than one way to view this weblog; these links display the current page in other formats. Index (Story headings) RSS (XML format for aggregators) External links These are a few of my favourite sites. T E S T Slashdot yesterday Copyright © 2003-2007 Alternate Worlds Publishing, Boston MA USA Wenhua dageming de zhongyao jiaoxun shi bixu fandui geren mixin If I have been able to see further, it is because I am surrounded by midgets. Never ascribe to stupidity that which can adequately be explained by malice. "Your argument's repugnant and intriguing." "That's kinda my thing."	Danny's Weblog This section is for articles which relate mainly to the Cambodian language, often referred to as Khmer. As with the rest of my site, the articles are presented in reverse chronological order. Also, they tend to represent things which I have discovered or speculated about which supplement the standard materials: this is not intended to present a free teach-yourself-Khmer course. In particular, note that I originally focused on using the "Limon-type" fonts for Cambodian, as they were far more commonly used than Unicode. Although I believe Limon is still much more common, support for Unicode is so much better these days that more recent posts focus on Unicode. To get a balanced picture, you should read the entire folder. You may also be interested in articles which refer to Asian languages in general: Asia/Language-misc 2008 Jul 01 [ Tue ] The "khmerconverter" utility to convert eg Limon to Unicode The description sounded interesting: Limon and similar non-Unicode ("USA International") fonts to Khmer Unicode and vice versa. I've written about the Limon issues before, eg here: www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Asia/Cambodia/Khmer-language/windowssetup01.html] I had found khmerconverter while looking around in Ubuntu Synaptic Package Manager. I had installed it a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't see where the installer had put the launcher and didn't bother proceeding. Today I happened to see the launcher (in Applications - Accessories) and tried it, but it appeared to do nothing. I found the name of the executable in the launcher and was able to do "man khmerconverter", which helped by showing command-line options, but not enough (the spec for the formats is not clear). On the web I found: www.khmeros.info [http://www.khmeros.info/drupal/?q=en/download/converter] which suggested that the app had a gui wrapper. After a while it occurred to me that I should try running the app from the console instead of the desktop. This revealed that it was complaining about the absence of the "tix" library for Tk. I found tix in Synaptic and installed it (no DVD necessary): clicking the launcher then brought up the gui. (It seems to me that if an app fails with an error message, the launcher, or the windowing environment, or something, should detect that and wait for you to read the error message instead of immediately closing the window. Oh well.) Hmm. This is the first time I've seen where a Synaptics app has clearly failed to install a necessary package. So how can you try it out? You can download Limon and ABC "legacy" fonts here: www.everyday.com.kh [http://www.everyday.com.kh/khmerfont/khmerfont.asp] This page is also useful: www.cambodia.org [http://www.cambodia.org/fonts/] with eg "How to type Khmer Unicode", a PDF document, unfortunately in Khmer and without any keyboard layout diagram for people trying to use a non-Khmer-Unicode keyboard. (There may be some reference to such a thing, but I was barely able to puzzle out more than a few words here and there.) After I had installed the fonts (by unzipping them to my /home/dannyw/.fonts folder), Firefox was able to view www.everyday.com.kh properly. When I checked the HTML source, it does indeed handle fonts in css, and the css specifies EOT fonts (ie the special downloadable font format for IE). So although Firefox can't handle those, it apparently knows it can default to the (newly-installed) TTF fonts by name. OTOH, the page layout was still all screwed up: all the text was scrunched into the right column. I was able to set Firefox to View - Page style - No style. This made it possible to select a block of several sentences of text from everyday.com, and I could copy it into OpenOffice. Then I could save as an OpenOffice .odt file, which is apparently the native format for khmerconverter. The output looked OK as far as I could see, ie the glyphs appeared to match – I'm not claiming to be able to edit Khmer text! So while I've hardly tested khmerconverter exhaustively, it does appear to be useful. Here are some blocks of test text so you can judge the performance of khmerconverter (and check whether my page and your browser setup work together – in particular check whether your browser is set to override font specs – d'oh!) Original Limon (only looks right if "Limon S1" font is installed on your system – I'm not bothering to set up an EOT font spec here): smaCikRBwT§sPaéf mYyRkumEdl manKña 77nak;kalBIéf¶cnÞ)ancab; epþImdMeNIrkarbBaÄb; karKaMRTrdæa Pi)aléfcMeBaHsMeNIrbs;rdæaPi)al km<úCaEdlesñIdak;R)asaTRBHvihar cUleTAkñúgbBa¢IebtikPNÐBiPBelak .kaEstDweNsðinrbs;éfraykarN_ fasmaCikRBwT§sPaTaMgenaH)an Unicode version (should display OK if any Unicode font on your system can handle the Khmer group of Unicode codes): សមាជិកព្រឹទ្ធសភាថៃ មួយក្រុមដែល មានគ្នា ៧៧នាក់កាលពីថ្ងៃចន្ទបានចាប់ ផ្តើមដំណើរការបញ្ឈប់ ការគាំទ្ររដ្ឋា ភិបាលថៃចំពោះសំណើរបស់រដ្ឋាភិបាល កម្ពុជាដែលស្នើដាក់ប្រាសាទព្រះវិហារ ចូលទៅក្នុងបញ្ជីបេតិកភណ្ឌពិភពលោក ។កាសែតឌឹណេស្ហិនរបស់ថៃរាយការណ៍ ថាសមាជិកព្រឹទ្ធសភាទាំងនោះបាន PKD example (just so you can see if you have PKD installed – I was too lazy to figure out the phonetcs for the whole of the above text): kNom At dIG te [Single-story view] [/Asia/Cambodia/Khmer-language] [permanent link] Responses: 0 [View/add responses] I hope this information was useful. There may be a great deal more information on this site that is relevant to what you need. Take a look at the "site map" display at left; you can click on a topic to see many recent items on that topic. This page is available for searching. Debug: hittotal: 50 startban: 0 dancookie: endbandate: banned: 0 tempdate: tert: jse: jsno jsh: 50