Language support … Pan-Australian keyboard layout
The Pan-Australian keyboard layout is designed to use with Tavultesoft Keyman 5.
The Pan-Australian keyboard layout is free to download and use. The keyboard layout requires the Keyman 5.0. Tavultesoft Keyman 5.0 is free for personal and educational use. For all other uses, Keyman may be used for a 30 day evaluation, and after that time, the registration cost of US$30 must be paid. Discounts are available for users in developing countries, larger orders, and other special cases. See Tavultesoft's registration page for further details, including methods of payment.
The Pan-Australian keyboard layout is under development. Two temporary versions have been created to allow the opportunity for the layouts to be tested and evaluated. The final keyboard will be developed based on feedback about the two temporary versions. The keyboard layouts have been designed to support a wide number of Australian Aboriginal languages.
The Pan-Australian keyboard layouts can be downloaded below:
Once you have downloaded the zip files, extract the files into a temporary directory. Then start up Keyman 5 and install the keyboard layouts from the Keyman configuration screen.
Keyman 5.0 Documentation is available in PDF format at http://www.tavultesoft.com/keyman/downloads/keyman.pdf
Windows 95/98/ME are based on older non-unicode legacy encodings. Keyman 5 will work on Windows 95/98/ME with some unicode aware programs. Windows NT4/2000 has much better Unicode support. It is important to read Tavultesoft's FAQ What applications and operating systems support Unicode?
The two versions of the Pan-Australian keyboard layout use deadkeys in conjunction with letters to type the additional characters required by a range of Australian Aboriginal languages.
Version 1 of the Pan-Australian keyboard layout uses keys that appropimate the shape of the required diacritic. The apostrophe key ( ' ) is used before a vowel to add an acute diacritic to the vowel that follows. The colon ( : ) is used to add a diaeresis to the following vowel. A tilde ( ~ ) is used to add a tilde diacritic to a following n. An underscore ( _ ) adds an macron below the following character. A backslash ( \ ) is used to create the remaining characters.
If you wish to type the character normally assigned to the deadkey, type in teh number twice, e.g. type in apostrophe twice to obtain an ASCII apostrophe and press the colon key twice to enter a colon.
Version 2 of the Pan-Australian keyboard layout uses the number keys to type the required diacritic. The 1 key is used before a vowel to add an acute diacritic to the vowel that follows. The 2 key is used to add a diaeresis to the following vowel. Typing the 3 key adds an macron below the following character. The 4 key is used to add a tilde diacritic to a following n. A backslash ( \ ) is used to create the remaining characters.
If you wish to type in a number, use the numbers on your keyboards digit pad.
| Character | Input for version 1 | Input for version 2 | Unicode value of character |
 | 'a | 1a | U+00E1 |
 | 'A | 1A | U+00C1 |
 | :a | 2a | U+00E4 |
 | :A | 2A | U+00C4 |
 | _d | 3d | U+1E0F |
 | _D | 3D | U+1E0E |
 | 'e | 1e | U+00E9 |
 | 'E | 1E | U+00C9 |
 | 'i | 1i | U+00ED |
 | 'I | 1I | U+00CD |
 | _l | 3l | U+1E3B |
 | _L | 3L | U+1E3A |
 | ~n | 4n | U+00F1 |
 | ~N | 4N | U+00D1 |
 | _n | 3n | U+1E49 |
 | _N | 3N | U+1E48 |
 | \n | \n | U+014B |
 | \N | \N | U+014A |
 | 'o | 1o | U+00F3 |
 | 'O | 1O | U+00D3 |
 | _r | 3r | U+1E5F |
 | _R | 3R | U+1E5E |
 | _t | 3t | U+1E6F |
 | _T | 3T | U+1E6E |
 | 'u | 1u | U+00FA |
 | 'U | 1U | U+00DA |
 | \' | \' | U+02BC |
Please try these keyboard layouts and send suggestions and comments to the editor. Contact details are below.
If you are interested in contributing, providing further information, or are aware of errors on this page, please contact the editors. Contact details are available at the bottom of this web page.
For further information contact
Andrew Cunningham
at VICNET, State Library of Victoria,
or
Antony Beale, Heritage Services,
Northern Territory Library.
