Last updated: 06 March 2002

This is a simple  guide to help you setup and use Murasu Editor version 3.0.

This version of the Editor requires Murasu Anjal2000 Second Edition. Current users of Anjal2000 may want to look at the Anjal2000 Second Edition page to find out what is new in Anjal2000-SE.

Murasu Editor is a "Plug-In" for Murasu Anjal. It will be included in the setup if you had downloaded and installed "Murasu Anjal2000 and Plug-Ins" package. It will also be included if you had installed Anjal2000 from the CD-ROM.

If you do not have the Plug-Ins installed, you may want to download the package from the Murasu Download Center at http://www.murasu.com/downloads.

This document will be constantly updated. For the latest updates and user guides on other Murasu software tools, please visit the Quick Start Pages at http://www.murasu.com/help/quickstart.

This guide has 6 sections:

Murasu Editor is a rich text editor that is similar to WordPad in Windows. It has the basic text editing and text formatting features. Finding and replacing text in Tamil, automatically setting the default font are some of it's unique features.

Murasu Editor runs in two modes: "Lite" and "Pro". The mode it dependant on your installation of Murasu Anjal. If you are running the free version, the editor will run in Lite mode. If you have Anjal Pro, the editor will switch to Pro mode.  In Pro mode, you may select any of the fonts installed in your system. Whereas in Lite mode, you may only use InaiMathi, TSCu_InaiMathi and TAB_InaiMathi.

You may use any of the keyboard and character set supported by Murasu Anjal to type Tamil text.

If you try to run Anjal2000 again, while it is already running in your system, Anjal2000 will start Murasu Editor instead. This is a new feature in the second edition. If the Editor is not installed, it will start the Mailer.

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File formats supported by Murasu Editor is listed below. The formats are determined by the three character extension that follows the filenames.


Murasu Rich Text
(extension:*.mrt)

This is the default file format. Murasu Editor will assume that you are creating an MRT file if you do not specify an extension. This format is the same as Microsoft's Rich Text Format (RTF). You can use proportionally spaced fonts and include formatting information like bold, italics, underline, indent, bullets etc.

This is also the extension you will get when you create a new Murasu Document from the desk top menu. Click your right mouse button on the Windows desktop, under the "new" menu, you'll find Murasu Rich Text.


Murasu Text File
(extension: *.MTF)

This is a plain text file and is provided for backward compatibility. Files created with Murasu Editor version 1.0 had this extension. These files can be open and edited with the current version of Murasu Editor.


Plain Text Files and HTML Files
(*.txt and *.htm)

Plain text files can also be edited with Murasu Editor. When files with these extensions are opened, the default font will be set to mono-spaced fonts.
 

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When you start a new document, the Editor will set a variant of InaiMathi as the default font. This will enable you to begin your document right away without having to worry about picking the right font for your encoding. The Table below shows the fonts that will be set based on your choice of character set (we use encoding and character set interchangeably). You character set setting is picked up from your Murasu Anjal setup.

Unlike the other tools (such as Insert-Text Editor and Mailer), the Editor will not automatically switch the fonts when you select a different character set. See the section below on the fonts you can choose for a particular encoding.
 

 
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When a paragraph is composed in a certain character set and is viewed with a different character set, we will see meaningless sequence of characters. For example, if the text is in TSCII and if we are viewing with the TAB_InaiMathi font, or vice-versa, we will not see the text correctly.

Fortunately, Murasu Anjal provides a way to convert these text from one format to another. To do this, you must first decide which format you want your text in. Let's take for example you want your text in TSCII format.

Checking the format

If your text does not appear correctly in the Editor, you can check which format your text is in. Select a portion of the text (the more you select the more accurate the results). While the text is selected, pull down the "+Murasu" menu and select "Check Encoding". Murasu Anjal will check the text and display a message stating the format the message is in.  If it says that the text is in TSCII, and you are not seeing it correctly, then you should set the font of the text to a TSCII font (font with a name that begins with TSCu_).

Check the bottom right corner of your Editor Window. The character set you have chosen will be displayed. If it's not TSCII, pull down the "+Murasu" menu again, select "Set Encoding" and pick "TSCII 1.7 Tamil".  This will ensure that the correct sequence of characters are composed when you type in Tamil with a TSCu_ font..

Converting the Text

Let's assume that in the example above, the text was checked and found to be in TAB. If you want to retain the text in TAB, see that you set the font of the text to one that starts with TAB_ as well (see the 'Checking the format' paragraph above).

However, if you want to convert the text that is in TAB to TSCII, select the entire text first; pull down the "+Murasu" menu; select "Convert Selection" and pick "To TSCII 1.7".

This will convert the entire text to TSCII format. Just ensure that you also set the font to a "TSCu_" font.

Other formats

The Editor will work with Murasu Anjal to automatically detect and convert Tamil text that are in Anjal, Murasu, Vikatan, Lippi and Kanian formats in addition to TSCII and TAB. You may use the steps above to convert from these formats.

If you have text in other formats, they can also be converted with the help of Murasu Anjal. It requires an additional step and these actions can be performed through the "+Murasu" menu. You may want to refer to the user guides on Murasu Anjal2000 and the "+Murasu" menu. These documents are listed in the Quick Start Guides page in Murasu.Com.
 

Anjal Encoding
 
If you are composing documents with Anjal encoding, using fonts like InaiMathi, InaiKathir, ArulMathi and other fonts that start with An_*, you need to take note of the "cut-and-paste" function. You should only use the speed buttons to perform these operations. Otherwise, you will have problems with characters like kaal, single and double "kombu's".

This problem will not be present in other encoding formats like TSCII or TAB.
 
TAB Encoding

TAB encoded fonts (i.e. fonts that begin with TAB_*) may display problems with "pulli" characters at small point sizes. To avoid this, use a larger point size.

The above problems do not exist in TSCII encoding. If you are going to be using Murasu Editor for most of you Tamil documents, we recommend that you use TSCII encoding (and fonts that begin with TSCu_*).
 

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