Latvian keyboard / fonts on Windows XP

[Guest]

I have an English (UK) version of Windows XP. Tried to install Latvian keyboard but it is not working properly, i.e., some letters (long "i", soft "L" and some others), do not show when I am trying to type them.

Don't underestimate me! I believe I did everything correctly. For example, I can type every other Latvian letter OK. I am also using Russian and Japanese keyboards and fonts, and experience no problems whatsoever.

Was anyone successful in using Latvian language on English Windows XP?

 

[Peter Klavins]

The Latvian keyboard belongs to the Windows XP operating system, not any
particular application like Word, so try another application like Notepad to
see if you have any problems there. If Notepad gives you all the Latvian
characters, then its the application you're using, not Windows XP, that is
the problem.

If in fact it is Word in which you can't type the Latvian characters, I have
found that for many versions of Word the 'keyboard shortcuts' override the
operating system keyboard. If you go to (depending on your version of Word)
to 'Tools' 'Customize' 'Keyboards...' you can change (or delete) the
keyboard shortcut assignments to various menu items. For example, on my Word
'Format' 'FormatAutoFormat' is assigned Alt-Ctrl-K, which is the keystroke
for the Latvian soft-K character. Deleting it allowed the soft-K to work,
and so on.

Of course, ignore all this if you aren't using Microsoft's Latvian
keyboard...

I have an English (UK) version of Windows XP. Tried to install Latvian

keyboard but it is not working properly, i.e., some letters (long "i", soft
"L" and some others), do not show when I am trying to type them.

Don't underestimate me! I believe I did everything correctly. For example,

I can type every other Latvian letter OK. I am also using Russian and
Japanese keyboards and fonts, and experience no problems whatsoever.

 

[Guest]

Peter,

Actually this strange behaviour is occurring in Notepad, in Web browser's text input fields (e.g. when posting a message in Latvian from Hotmail account.

What is very peculiar is that only 2 letters are affected: long "i" and soft "L" (both of them in small caps), all other letters are fine, including large caps "i" and "L".

Guess it's a minor bug. I wonder how I could report it.

 

[Paul Gorodyansky]

Hello!

Works Ok on my US English Windows 2000 - both in Word 2000 and
in Notepad...

Don't underestimate me! I believe I did everything correctly.

Then I guess, you did the following:

a) Looked where the letters are:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/keyboards.aspx

b) Looked at the correct layout - based on what
you installed - "Latvian" or "Latvian (QWERTY)"


--
Regards,
Paul Gorodyansky
"Cyrillic (Russian): instructions for Windows and Internet":
http://RusWin.net
Russian On-screen Keyboard: http://Kbd.RusWin.net

 

[Paul Gorodyansky]

Hello!

...
Still no small caps long "i" and no small caps soft "L".

I am using English Win XP Pro bought in UK.

In English Win 2000 Latvian keyboard worked just fine.

Could the reason be that I have no Baltics fonts on my PC?

No, you _do_ have Baltic fonts - Windows NT/2000/XP have
multilingual fonts without any setup or installation -
easy to see - I can go to a brand new system - even Japanese -
and can *see* Russian Web pages normally -
fonts are responsible for showing you the text, for _display_.
If you go to any Latvian Web page you will see the same -
all is readable.

You can install free MS utlity
http://www.microsoft.com/truetype/property/property.htm
and then in Windows Explorer go to Fonts sub-folder
of c:\Windows folder, place a cursor on, say, 'Arial'
and with right mouse button choose Properties - there
see Charset/Unicode tab - you will see that Baltic
_is_ supported

I have a guess, just a guess - after we found out that
Windows 2000 does not have such problem:
Windows XP has a brand new keyboard tools set -
Language Bar while Windows 2000 has the same good old
keyboard driver that previous versions of Windows had.
I know - from Russian forums - that this new Language Bar
sometimes causes problems - not similar to your, but still...

So you may want to read my page about Language bar and
try to disable it:
http://RusWin.net/LangBar.htm