Configuring Your Computer to Read and Write in Russian 

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 Updated on 5 December 2000, instructions optimized for Mac OS 8.6

NOTE: This tutorial is designed with the assumption that you are using a computer in a UK Microlab.  If you have your own computer, please look here.
NOTE: You will have to perform these steps every time you sit down to a new Mac, or if you reboot.  When you reboot, a program called RevRDist will remove the Russian software and return the Mac to its pristine original condition.

On campus, teaching your computer Russian can be quite easy, if you do one thing: Use a Macintosh. The Mac treats Russian fonts the same as any other font. That means that unlike the PC, it requires no additional language support.  And don't worry about the fact that the Russian alphabet is different and has more characters.  The keyboard layout that we use corresponds almost exactly to the English phonetic equivalents, i.e. the Russian letter "C" is on the key for the English letter "S." This make typing far easier than you might imagine.  Also, Macs have a function under the Apple menu, Key Caps, that shows the Russian keyboard layout. This saves much time when you do not know which keys correspond to which Russian letters.  This is not an endorsement, just realistic advice: Use a Macintosh. Even if these instructions seem confusing at first, after you have it down you can install everything you need in less than five minutes.  Macs are currently available in King South Microlab, the Journalism and Telecommunications Microlab, Commons Microlab, Architecture Microlab, Biological Sciences Microlab, Boyd Hall Microlab, Chemistry/Physics Microlab, Health Sciences Microlab.

On a PC in the UK Microlabs, you can only read Cyrillic text on web pages using Netscape.  You cannot type in Russian without installing the Windows Multilanguage support, and it is no longer possible to install anything, due to administrative restrictions.  You will have to use a Mac to type on campus.
 

• How to View Web Pages
• on a PC
• on a Mac
• To Type in Russian with a Mac
• To E-mail in Russian on a Mac with Eudora Pro
• To E-mail in Russian on a Mac with Web-based Mail
• Cyrillicize Your Mac at Home
• Cyrillicize Your PC at Home

To View Web Pages in Russian:

Macs and PCs

Most Russian web sites and news groups use the KOI8 type of fonts. KOI stands for "Kod Obmena Informatsii" or Code of Information Exchange. It is an 8 bit encoding (hence the name KOI8) which includes both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. It is used in Russia predominantly for communication purposes, such as e-mail, USENET, Internet publishing via WWW, Gopher, etc.  The other dominant encoding on the net is Microsoft's CP 1251.
 
• For the PC, Netscape 4.* and Netscape Communicator have Cyrillic support and fonts built-in.  Usually, Netscape automatically switches the encoding when you go to a page with Cyrillic text, so you don't need to do anything.  If you see gibberish when you are at a Russian language site, pull down the View | Encoding menu, and select the Cyrillic encoding that works.
• For the Mac, You will need to download the Apple Standard Cyrillic fonts. This is because Netscape 4.* is designed to work with Apple Standard Cyrillic.  Using other fonts in version 4.* has always caused me complications.  Download font 1 and font 2.  When these fonts are un-stuffed, their names will be a bunch of squiggly characters, totally illegible.. This is normal, so don't worry.  Just try to remember which one you downloaded first.

Next, open up the Mac Drive and scroll down until you see the System Folder.  Place both fonts on top of the closed system folder and click OK. Start up Netscape 4, and pull down the Edit | Preferences menu and select the "fonts" category. Pull up the Cyrillic encoding tab and set the proportional font to font 1 and the fixed width as font 2. These When you view any Cyrillic web page, pull down the View | Encoding menu and select whichever Cyrillic encoding works for that page.  My class syllabi will be in KOI8-R encoding, for example.

To type in Russian with a Mac

In order to type in Russian you will need the ER Bukinist KOI8 font, download here, and a special keyboard layout, download here.  (For web mail, you will need ER Kurier KOI8-R, download here.)

NOTE: This is the best keyboard layout that I have found; but it is shareware, that is, free for trial use only.  Other free layouts are available, but they are not as user-friendly.  Read the terms on Matvey Palchuk's "Russification of Macintosh" page.

Stuffit Expander should decompress the files automatically, and and an icon with a keyboard on it will appear, as will the font. The icon with the keyboard on it is the Russian keyboard layout. Quit all programs and place the keyboard layout and the font suitcase on the closed System Folder in the Mac Drive. In Mac OS 8.6, which is in the UK microlabs, you will need to do the following steps.

After you drop the keyboard layout in the System folder, pull down the Help menu on the status bar and select Help Center.  Type the word "keyboards" in the search box and click search.  On the next screen, click on the fist link that appears, "Using different languages."  Then, on the next screen, click on the first link that appears, "Open the Keyboard Control Panel for Me."  At this point the Keyboard Control Panel will open.  Scroll down until you see "Russian KOI8-R" and check the box next to it.  Close the control panel window.

At this point, a little American flag will appear on the status bar. This is a menu to select the keyboard layout. If the active font is ER Bukinist KOI8, select the Russian-KOI8 keyboard. This font types in both English and in Russian. To switch between them, press the caps lock key.  Caps lock on=Russian, caps lock off=English.

Check out the Yamada font index at the University of Oregon if you are interested in more Cyrillic fonts. But remember, you must use a KOI8 for e-mail.

*NEW*  It's great that UK now has tons of new G3s, but the downside is that they have only Zip disk drives, not floppies.  Zip disks are more expensive than a floppy, so if you do not want to purchase one, you may use web-based e-mail.

**NOTE: this allows email only with users of Eudora Pro. If you send a message to someone using a program other than Eudora Pro, they will possibly see only gibberish. To get around this problem, you must follow the "Cyrillicize your Mac all the way" step, which you should do only on your own computer.**

If you need it, here is an in-depth tutorial to guide you through the whole process, all the way from getting your account in the labs.

Or here is the brief version:

       You need the Russian font, ER Bukinist KOI8. Download it here.

       In order to type in Russian with the ER Bukinist KOI8 font, you
       will need a special keyboard layout. Download it here.

       If you have already installed the fonts and the keyboard driver (see the instructions for typing in Russian), you may send and receive e-mail in Russian. In Eudora, pull down the Special | Settings menu. Under the Fonts and Display category, change the display font to ER Bukinist KOI8. You will still be able to read any English on the screen. Then, on the Sending Mail category, make sure "Fix Curly Quotes" is UNCHECKED.  Click OK to save these settings and you are ready to go.

       Type normally, and when you want Russian characters, make sure the Russian-KOI8 keyboard is selected, and press caps lock.
 

You may get a web-based email account from many providers.  A few examples are Yahoo!, Excite, Hotmail, etc.  To read a message in KOI8-R, just follow the instructions for reading Russian web pages--that part is exactly the same.  To type, however, you must download and install the keyboard driver used for typing and an additional font (ER Kurier KOI8-R), download here.  The reason you need one more font is that web-based e-mail (and any other web forms, etc.) use fixed-width fonts.  Why can't you use the Apple Standard Cyrillic fonts to type?  The Keyboard driver we have is for KOI8 fonts, so you need a KOI8 fixed-width font.

After the keyboard layout, Apple Standard Cyrillic font 1 and font 2, and ER Kurier KOI8-R are installed, start up Netscape.  Under the Edit | Preferences menu, select the "fonts" category.  So you can read Russian e-mail, select the Cyrillic encoding and set the proportional font to Font 1 and the fixed-width font to Font 2.  So you can type, do the following: On the same screen, select the "User-defined" encoding.  You can leave the proportional font alone (or set it to ER Bukinist KOI8-R, if you want) and set the fixed-width font to ER Kurier KOI8-R.  You might want to make the font size a bit larger as well.  Click OK to save these save these settings.

So, lets say you get a message in Russian.  When you first see it on your screen, it is probably a bunch of squiggly lines.  To read it, pull down the View | Encoding menu and select the Cyrillic (Mac Cyrillic) encoding.  When it is time to reply, pull down the View | Encoding menu and select the User-Defined encoding (this will activate the ER Kurier KOI8-R font).  Do this BEFORE you start typing.  Once the encoding is set to user-defined, select the Russian KOI8 Keyboard from the keyboards icon on the status bar (the little flag, remember?), turn caps lock on, and you are e-mailing in Russian!

On Your Own Computer

Regardless of your operating system (PC or Mac), if you have a computer at home then you can read and write in Russian. Here is a good resource for how to do that on the PC platform.  This site includes information for making Eudora pro for PC work with Cyrillic too. This site also has helpful information.

Cyrillicize your Mac all the way

If you own your own Macintosh (i.e. not in a UK Microlab), and want to really Cyrillicize, then check Matvey Palchuk's excellent "Russification of Macintosh" page. You should do this only on your own computer because this procedure requires a fair amount of time and the downloading of some new software to install.