Tibetan Publisher, Dictionary and Text Archiver


TibetD Software

Database and Electronic Text Archiver / Publisher

Overview
TibetD is the first stand-alone program written for Windows that supports Tibetan script. TibetD is a multi-faceted program. It was originally built as a dictionary program for Tibetan / English dictionaries but has been developed into a very powerful program that can be used for working with Tibetan and other language scripts in a number of ways. Designed by a translator/scholar for use by other scholars and translators both Tibetan and non-Tibetan, it contains several desirable features not seen in one software package up to now.

A key feature of TibetD and the word-processor derived from it, TibetDoc, is that it can save files in a special format suitable for archiving and widespread distribution. Works created in either program can be distributed without the worry that end-users will accidentally corrupt the files, something that is crucial for the preservation of Tibetan Buddhist texts. To go with this feature a Reader-Only edition of TibetD has been made making TibetD an Adobe Acrobat for Tibetan. The at the moment is distributed with electronic texts and publications from Padma Karpo Translation Committee.

Thus:

The Professional Edition of TibetD can create, view, and publish in distributable format several types of documents:

Databases - dictionaries, lists, catalogues, glossaries, and so forth.

Tibetan pecha in electronic pecha format.

Texts in general electronic format.

Word-processing documents in a variety of formats, including HTML, RTF, WordPerfect for DOS and Windows, and TibetDoc.

The Reader-Only Edition allows you to view, search, and use all of the files created by both TibetD and TibetDoc but cannot create or edit them.

General Features

TibetD is capable of dealing with Tibetan text, English, or other languages alone or in combination and includes full support for Sanskrit transliterated into Roman languages.

All text can be cut and copied to other programs via the clipboard. All text can be transferred to other programs such as Word, Pagemaker, etcetera by saving in RTF file format. Text can also be saved in Corel WordPerfect for DOS and Windows formats. Text retrieved into WordPerfect and Word formats can be manipulated using our Tibetan word-processors.

Any WordPerfect 6 for DOS file can be directly imported, including files made with the Tibetan! version 4 (and Diacritics!) programs. All text can be exported directly back into WordPerfect for DOS and used in that environment with the Tibetan! (and Diacritics!) programs.

All of the keyboard technology that has been developed by the Tibetan Computer Company over the past twelve years has been built into the program, giving significant ease of use when typing Tibetan and Sanskrit in transliteration. All of our products have the same keyboard layout so if you learn to type in any one them, you will have learned to type in all of the others too. The keyboard layout is easily user-customizable.

The program uses our world-famous Tibetan typefaces. Text on-screen and printed is the highest quality available.

Release:
The Professional Edition will not be released for some time yet. When the Professional edition is released, it will allow other scholars and translators to create, manipulate, and share their own dictionaries, glossaries, lists, catalogues, and electronic texts in Tibetan, English, Sanskrit transliterated into English, and potentially other languages as well.

The Reader-Only Edition was released in December 1999 and is being provided with electronic publications made by Padma Karpo Translation Committee.

Behind the scenes information:
TibetD is the first standalone application written for Windows that fully supports the Tibetan language language. The program was designed by a translator for use by other scholars and translators both Tibetan and non-Tibetan. TibetD makes it easy to view, create, and distribute works in languages including Tibetan, English, Sanskrit transliterated into Roman with diacriticals, and other languages.

The program was built with several aims in mind. One of them was the needs of the Drukpa Kagyu Heritage Project. Based in Kathmandu, the Project has taken a central role in helping Tibetans around the world to correct and preserve the written works of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. The Project needed a means to publish its works—over a hundred volumes of Tibetan texts—in a secure yet highly usable electronic format. Other projects on the Indian sub-continent who have been using the Tibetan! software for their preservational purposes have also been wanting such a software for publishing their works which amount now to many hundreds of volumes.

Another need was that of translators in general. Lama Tony Duff, the founder of the Tibetan Computer Company is also a well-known translator and directs the work of the Padma Karpo Translation Committee. Lama Tony has long felt that, in these relatively early days of translating Tibetan works, that translators have needed effective tools for doing their work. For many years a consistent request from other translators and students of Tibetan Buddhism was, "Is there a computerized dictionary?". Until the late 1990's the answer was that the lack of proper software to create and use them made it difficult to create them to start with. At that time another electronic dictionary was made but it did not support Tibetan script and did not have effective searching tools. Therefore Lama Tony decided that the Committee should develop real Tibetan software that would be particularly suitable to creating and publishing the dictionaries, glossaries, and lists that are needed by translators. TibetD and TibetD Reader is that software.

Lama Tony's Padma Karpo Translation Comittee has already produced several major works in the TibetD format. For example, the Committee has made a carefully edited edition of Sarat Chandra Das's classical Tibetan-English Dictionary, Jamgon Kongtrul's entire Treasury which is An Encyclopedia of Knowledge, the Madhyamakavatara, and so on. See the Padma Karpo Translation Committee's electronic publications page.