TibetDoc - wordprocessing/e-mailer for Windows


Tibetan Word-processing Software Overview

We sell two different word-processing packages for Tibetan script:

	TibetDoc standalone word-processor for Windows
	The Tibetan Complete WordProcessing Package for Windows:
	TibetDoc standalone word-processor for Windows Tibetan! Version 5 add-in for MS Word for Windows Tibetan! Version 5 add-in for WordPerfect for Windows

Tibetan! Version 4 was the original program that we made for Tibetan word-processing and text preparation. It worked in WordPerfect for DOS and was the most widely used program for working with Tibetan texts. For the last ten years, Tibetans in Tibet and on the Indian sub-continent have used this program almost exclusively for publishing Tibetan texts. Outside of Tibet, nearly every publication, from government public notices and official documents through newspapers, schoolbooks, and so on, have been produced using this program and our fonts. The program gained such high popularity for two reasons. Firstly, the producer of the software worked hard to give Tibetans what they wanted and needed, without insisting on Western ways. Amongst other things, this software was the only one that allowed Tibetans to make truly authentic Tibetan pecha. Secondly, our fonts are universally acknowledged by Tibetans to be the most authentic looking and the most beautiful, too. Tibetans themselves have referred to the maker of the software and fonts, the translator Tony Duff, rather affectionately and with great appreciation as "the father of modern Tibetan publishing".

The Tibetan! Version 4 program has fallen out of favour amongst Westerners because of its DOS roots. Nonetheless, Tibetans in Asia still rely on it for their wordprocessing needs both secular and religious. For example, the Nyenchen Thanglha Tibetan newspaper published fortnightly in Kathmandu uses it with our Tibetan Calligraphic fonts. Importantly, most monasteries use it on a daily basis because it has been the only program that could make Tibetan pecha properly and because Tibetans prefer our fonts. As a result, a huge amount of Tibetan literature has been published in this format, by Tibetans; more than 1000 volumes at our last count in India and Nepal. For example, the Drukpa Kagyu Heritage Project, directed by Tony Duff, has just recently published 108 volumes of texts using this software and these fonts. The volumes contain the most important titles of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition. The chairman of the project, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, has pointed out several times that, without the fonts and software that Tony made and without his efforts on behalf of Tibetan Buddhism during his long stay in Asia, these texts and the many others preserved using his software and fonts would have been lost irretrievably. This is not exaggeration or badge-polishing; it is a fact well-known to refugee Tibetans, though not so well known in the Western world, that the Tibetan textual tradition was in dire straights after the communist Chinese invasion. It was the singular efforts of a handful of people such as Gene Smith and later on Tony himself that provided the means for refugee Tibetans to preserve and re-publish the Tibetan buddhist heritage before it was too late and lost for good.

Despite the popularity and usefulness of the Tibetan! Version 4 software, it is a DOS based program and has now reached the end of its life cycle. Tibetans have often come to us asking for something that would work in Windows and which would still allow them to use our fonts, which they like so much. We tried for sometime to make add-ins for Windows products that worked like the Tibetan! 4 program. We did successfully make ones for both WordPerfect and Word for Windows. We called them Tibetan! 5 for WordPerfect and Word respectively. Unfortunately, both WordPerfect and Word have significant problems when it comes to Tibetan text and Word, especially, just cannot make pecha. Therefore, we undertook the difficult task of making a new program for Windows, one that would be a complete replacement for the Tibetan! 4 program.

Our goal was a program that would fill the needs of Tibetans and non-Tibetans alike. To start with, we know that the Tibetans have to be given what they need. For their own work to succeed, we knew exactly what was needed. Firstly, the program had to have all the special tools needed not only for typing Tibetan but for making correcting the input text and turning it into pecha. We needed to have spelling checkers and special comparators for comparing multiple input copies and other, similar tools. In addition, we knew that the program had to be easy to learn. Our earlier Tibetan! 4 program could make the most authentic pecha but it took a lot to master the technique. Our new program had to have all of the tools needed to input and correct texts, and publish them in traditional pecha format, AND be easy to learn. Experience told us that we needed software that any monk could learn in the morning and be making authentic pecha with in the afternoon.

We knew that, if we could produce this kind of program, Tibetans themselves would use it to take care of inputting, correcting, and preserving their own texts. Those texts would then be available to everyone including non-Tibetans who are interested in Tibetan culture and buddhism. As a side bonus, this software often gives jobs to younger Tibetans in refugee camps, who otherwise do not have work. It not only gives them a job and salary but keeps them out of trouble. Even better, it keeps them connected with the heart of their own, buddhist culture. For example, our Drukpa Kagyu Heritage Project was staffed mainly by young laypeople who were given a job, salary, and a close connection with their own culture because of the Tibetan! 4 software. Without it, they would have just fallen by the wayside.

Once the texts become available from the Tibetans, non-Tibetans can use them for their own study and especially, can translate them. Therefore, we also wanted to make the software so that it would be useful to non-Tibetans. Of course, just the presence itself of the program will allow non-Tibetans access to Tibetan texts that the Tibetans prepare with it. In addition to that, though, the program should work for Westerners wanting to study the language and translate it. Tony, as a translator himself, knew what the program needed: an interface that would allow easy switching between Western and Tibetan scripts, support for European languages, and many other such details. In addition, as a translator, he wanted to make the software so that the user could click on a Tibetan word and immediately look up the word in one of the several dictionaries prepared by his translation committee, Padma Karpo Translation Committee.

Now, in November,2003, and after about five years, we have fulfilled all of these goals. We have produced not just a new wordprocessor but a suite of programs for working with Tibetan language. We have made wordprocessor called TibetDoc that does all of the things mentioned above and to go with it, software for making dictionaries and software for reading Tibetan texts called TibetD. And for those who need to use WordPerfect or Word,we have the Tibetan! 5 software as well.

TibetDoc is the word-processor. It works well for anyone involved in Tibetan language studies, from Western students needing to type a little Tibetan for their study purposes, for scholars and translators, and for Tibetan monasteries who need to reproduce and make the highest-quality publications of Tibetan buddhist texts in authentic Tibetan format. It is a vehicle for publishing texts electronically, too, in a format that makes them safe from corruption but that can make them immediately accessible to everyone; like a Tibetan version of Adobe Acrobat. In fact, our sister organization, Padma Karpo Translation Committee, has already published a number of Tibetan buddhist texts in this format.

TibetDoc making pecha and spell-checking

This is not a simulation! TibetDoc is being used to make a pecha from a Tibetan text. The text is one of the thousands that have been input and corrected by Tibetans in India and Nepal using the older Tibetan! 4 software. TibetDoc can import these files easily making a huge range of texts immediately available. Pecha format has been applied by clicking a button. Note the written Tibetan page numbers; TibetDoc supplies them automatically, correctly spelled and positioned. A spelling check is being done before the formatting is finalized. The spelling checker has stopped on a word that will be added to the dictionary with the button on the toolbar.

TibetD is the database component. It is especially useful for producing dictionaries and catalogues of Tibetan texts. Padma Karpo Translation Committee uses this software to publish its high quality Tibetan-English and Tibetan-Tibetan dictionaries. The dictionaries are provided with the software in a form called TibetD Reader, which is custom programmed to make the dictionaries as accessible as possible.

TibetD Reader used for dictionary lookups

This is TibetD Reader, being used to view dictionaries and texts made with TibetD software. The dictionary being consulted is The Illuminator Tibetan-English Dictionary. One of the features of the Reader is that any Tibetan letter, word, or phrase can be looked up in another dictionary on the fly. Here the headword in The Illuminator has been looked up in Sarat Chandra Das's Dictionary. The result comes up in the window seen at the bottom. The dictionary in the bottom window can be browsed, too. A word can be looked up even in the middle of spelling checking. The same feature is also in TibetDoc.

Tibetan! 5 is a collection of add-in programs for Word and WordPerfect that complement the above, standalone programs. The entire manuals for both products can be downloaded for free; they have many screen shots showing the software and how it works. They also have large amounts of information on Tibetan text formatting that you won't find elsewhere.

Altogether, we have made a complete system for working with the Tibetan language. And especially, the new TibetDoc and TibetD software programs work hand-in-hand to give translators, scholars, and students of the language a really useful system for doing their work. In particular, we hope that the software will help translators to do their work more easily, effectively, and with the new rapid access to reliable dictionaries, more rapidly too. And equally, that the Tibetans will have the means to preserve their literature in a way that not only aids them, but makes a body of electronic literature available for the use of non-Tibetans altogether.

Continued...