Configuring Syriac on Windows Vista / Windows 7

1. Click on Start à Control Panel à Clock, Language and Region à Regional and Language Options

2. Go to Keyboards and Languages tab

3. Click on Change Keyboards

4. Click on Add button under Installed Services

5. Select Syriac and check either the Syriac or  Syriac Phonetic Keyboard

6. Click OK

7. Go to Language Bar tab and check settings. You can change these to your preferences.

8. Exit out of all Control Panel screens. You should see the Language Bar to the left of the System Tray with “EN” displayed. Clicking on "EN" will display the language options from which "SY" - Syriac can be selected as the input language.

9. Go to the section “Typing in Syriac.”

Configuring Syriac on Windows XP

1. Click on Start à Control Panel à Clock, Language and Region à Regional and Language Options

2. Check both boxes above and click “Apply”. You may need your Win XP installation CD to complete this step.

3. Click the “Details” button. Click the “Add” button under “Installed Services.” Select “Input Language” – “Syriac” and “Keyboard layout/IME” – “Syriac Phonetic”.

4. Exit out of all Control Panel screens. You should see the Language Bar to the left of the System Tray with “EN” displayed. Clicking on "EN" will display the language options from which "SY" - Syriac can be selected as the input language.

5. Go to the section “Typing in Syriac."

Typing in Syriac

1. Launch the application in which you want to insert Syriac text (any Microsoft Application)

2. Place the cursor where you want to enter Syriac. Toggle the Language Bar icon from EN to SY

3. Now you can type in Syriac. The default font is Estrangelo Edessa.

4. For other fonts, download melthofonts-1.21.zip from http://www.bethmardutho.org/index.php/resources/fonts.html.

5. Unzip the file into a temporary directory. You can double click on melthofonts-1.21.msi to install all fonts available. You may prefer to install only some of the fonts; in this case, you will have to select the font files for these fonts and copy into your Fonts directory(C:\Windows\Fonts). E.g., to install Serto Jerusalem, copy the three .otf files starting with SyrCOMJerusalem into the Fonts directory.