# README for the itrans package
# $Header: e:/itrans/rcs/readme 1.9 92/12/11 20:24:46 avinash Exp $

                    Version 3.21, of the itrans package
	  (Supports Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, and Bengali Printing)
            -----------------------------------------------------

This is a package for printing text in indian language scripts.

This package only does the transliteration mapping, the fonts
may be developed elsewhere.

Version 1.01 supports the devanagari script using a font that I created.
Version 2.00 adds support for a Tamil font---it uses the font
developed at U of Washington, called wntml.
Version 2.10/2.11 adds support for another devanagari font---it uses the
font developed by Frans Velthuis.
Version 3.00 adds support for Telugu (from the TeluguTeX package).
Version 3.20 adds support for Bengali (from the SonarGaon package).

The preferred input interface is through TeX, though a dumb textual
interface is available for the PostScript devanagari font (devnac).

The input is in a transliterated form, each letter in an indian language
is assigned an english equivalent, and you use the english forms to
construct what will eventually print out in the indian language script.

The fonts supported:

1) devnac (devanagari font). PostScript Type III font.
   Is bundled in with itrans, requires a PostScript printer.
   TeX is optional, but is supported. TeX support assumes that you have
   Tomas Rokicki's dvips package (see the FAQ in comp.text.tex).

2) wntml (tamil font). Metafont, for TeX.
   Is bundled in with itrans, requires TeX.
   (Font is from the Humanities and Arts Computing Center of the
    University of Washington, USA.)

3) devnag (devanagari font). Metafont, for TeX.
   Requires TeX. This font is NOT bundled in with itrans.
   This is the font developed by Frans Velthuis.
   You can get this font from various FTP sites (file devnag.tar.Z):
	rugrcx.rug.nl (129.125.4.12), in the directory "pub"
	june.cs.washington.edu, in the directory "/tex"
	cs.duke.edu (128.109.140.1), in the directory "dist/sources"

4) tel (telugu font). Metafont, for TeX.
   Requires TeX. This font is NOT bundled in with itrans.
   This is the font developed by Lakshmi V S Mukkavilli.
   You can get this font from various FTP sites.

5) sgaon (bng10rpn, bn100rpn, bn100ipn) (bengali font). LaserJet softfont.
   This is a Windows (MS-DOS) screen font, and is available in 10pt size only.
   There are tools available to convert softfonts to PK files (SFtoPK package),
   and thus, this font can be used with the TeX interface of ITRANS.
   This font is *not* bundled in with ITRANS, it has to be obtained elsewhere.

Dumb interface:
For rudimentary tasks, the input may be in simple ascii text form, in
which case, all you need is a PostScript-capable printing device.
This mode restricts you to PostScript fonts only---Metafont
descriptions cannot be used.

I developed the Devnac Devanagari font, it is kind-of very heavy, in weight.
(Type III -- user defined PostScript font.)
Variations on the font such as slanted, compressed, expanded can also be
generated.  Since it is a PostScript font description, you can generate
fonts of any size desired.
See the file dvnc.itx for more details regarding this font.

The Tamil font is the wntml font developed at U of Washington, and it is
also bundled in with this system.  wntml is a Metafont description,
hence the Tamil output can only be produced if you have TeX installed
on your system.
See the file tamil.itx for more details regarding this font.

The second devanagari font supported is Frans Velthuis's Devnag
font---it is a Metafont font, and thus can only be used if you have
TeX installed.
See the file dvng.itx for more details regarding this font.

The telugu tex font is outlined in the file tlgutx.itx, while the bengali
font is described in the file sgaonpk.itx.

This package is available in tar format (for UNIX systems) and zip format
(for IBM-PC compatible systems). Both packages contain identical files,
except that the end-of-line termination characters may differ.

Depending on the version, ITRANS package names may vary, the format is
ITRANSxx.ZIP or itransXX.tar.Z for the source files (and PC executable).
(xx or XX is the version number).
There is a second file, called ITRANSPS.ZIP or itransps.tar.Z, which contains
postscript printer-ready files for the user manuals---use this to look at
the fonts before going around trying to gather all the various sub-parts
needed for different languages.

Release 3.2 is temporarily available at:
"ftp.uu.net", in the "tmp" directory. Files are
itrans32.tar.Z and itransps.tar.Z for Unix machines
itrans32.zip and itransps.zip for MS-DOS machines.

This release will be uploaded to other FTP sites in due time:
(FTP site: cs.duke.edu  dist/sources/itrans32.tar.Z and itransps.tar.Z)
(SIMTEL archive: ITRANS32.ZIP and ITRANSPS.ZIP)

{
    For itrans32.tar.Z, run this command to unpack all the files:
    $ # first mkdir/cd to whatever directory in which you wish to unpack
    $ zcat itrans32.tar.Z | tar xovf -
    # Edit the appropriate makefile, and run the make.
    # All sources are C files, and assume that lex/yacc is available.

    For the zip file, use this command on your IBM-PC:
    E:\ITRANS> pkunzip -d ITRANS32
    or
    E:\ITRANS> unzip ITRANS32
}   
Avinash Chopde, 8 Kenmar Drive #55, Billerica, MA 01821, USA.
avinash@silver.lcs.mit.edu
