Tibetan Toolboxབོད་ཡིག་ལག་ཆ།

Type Tibetan

You do not need a special keyboard to write Tibetan. The simplest way is to type in Wylie, the standard way of spelling Tibetan with Latin letters, and let the computer turn it into Tibetan script: type sangs rgyas and you get སངས་རྒྱས། If you can spell a word, you can type it.

Start with the guide for your device below. After it come other keyboards and converters.

Choose your device

Guide and videos by Frère Jérémy, from the classical Tibetan course organised by Padmakara and led by Wulstan Fletcher.

Typing Tibetan on a Mac

Nothing to install: the Tibetan keyboard is part of macOS.

How to Type Tibetan on a Mac – Built-in Wylie Keyboard + Tibetan Fonts - watch on YouTube

  1. Open System Settings, then Keyboard. Under Text Input, choose Input Sources, then Edit.
  2. Press +, search for Tibetan, choose Tibetan – Wylie and press Add.
  3. Switch keyboards with the globe key, bottom left of your keyboard, or from the keyboard menu at the top of the screen.
  4. Type: sangs rgyas becomes སངས་རྒྱས། Switch back before you answer an email!
  • Lost? From the keyboard menu, choose Show Keyboard Viewer: it shows which key gives which letter.
  • Stacks that are not standard Tibetan, as in Sanskrit, need the stacking key between the letters: hold Shift and press the key just left of Delete, whatever is printed on it (on an English keyboard it is the + key). For instance: pad, then the stacking key, then ma gives པདྨ

On a French (AZERTY) keyboard

The Mac's Tibetan keyboard follows the English key positions, not the letters printed on your keys. A few keys therefore type something other than their label:

To typepress the key marked
aQ
qA
zW
wZ
m,
'ù
.:
/!

Every other letter is where you expect it. In doubt, Show Keyboard Viewer in the keyboard menu shows each key. The Windows keyboard follows the active layout, AZERTY included.

A Tibetan font

The keyboard types the letters; a font draws them. Your computer already has one, but Jomolhari is clearer, and free. Download the font, open the file, and press Install in the window that opens.

Download the Jomolhari font

Free to use and to share, under the SIL Open Font License. Read the licence. Jomolhari is by Chris Fynn; this copy comes from Google Fonts.

Typing Tibetan on Windows

A small free program, open source, that works in every application: Word, LibreOffice, your email, your browser.

How to Type Tibetan on Windows – Free Wylie Keyboard, Step by Step - watch on YouTube

  1. Download the keyboard below and open the file.
  2. Your browser and Windows will warn you about an unfamiliar program. Choose Keep, then Keep anyway; then More info, then Run anyway.
  3. Install it. Ticking Start automatically and Desktop shortcut is a good idea.
  4. Its icon, a Tibetan ཨོཾ, appears among the small icons at the bottom right of the screen, sometimes hidden behind the ^ arrow. Drag it out so that it stays in view.
  5. Hold Shift and press Space twice to switch Tibetan on: the icon turns green. Do the same to switch it off.

Download the keyboard for Windows

For a Windows computer with an ARM processor, such as a Surface Pro X, download this version instead. Every combination the keyboard accepts (on GitHub, opens another site). The keyboard is the free, open source Tibetan EWTS Keyboard by bkntr.

  • Letters that should sit side by side but would stack, like the g and y of གཡས, are kept apart with a dot: g.yas.
  • Stacks that are not standard Tibetan, as in Sanskrit, are joined with a +. For instance: pad+ma gives པདྨ

A Tibetan font

The keyboard types the letters; a font draws them. Your computer already has one, but Jomolhari is clearer, and free. Download the font, open the file, and press Install.

Download the Jomolhari font

Free to use and to share, under the SIL Open Font License. Read the licence. Jomolhari is by Chris Fynn; this copy comes from Google Fonts.

Typing Tibetan on an iPhone or iPad

iPhones and iPads come with a Tibetan keyboard, and already display Tibetan: there is no font to install. A video showing how to add the keyboard and use it is coming soon.

Typing Tibetan on Android

Android phones already display Tibetan: there is no font to install. A video showing how to type it is coming soon.

Wylie cheat sheet

What to type for each letter. The same on a Mac and on Windows, except where noted. Printable PDF from the course.

Download the cheat sheet (PDF)

To practise, paste your Wylie into the Lotsawa House Wylie converter: nothing needs installing.

More ways to type and convert

Gboard

by Google

Google's keyboard app. According to the Digital Tibetan guide, its Tibetan keyboard is available on Android but not in the iOS version.

  • Android
  • Free
Open Gboard (opens another site)

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