BHUBANESWAR: Good news for Odia internet users! You can now write, edit, copy, paste, and perform all tasks in the Odia language on your phone and computer, just like you do in English.
With an increased focus on the use of Odia in internet and official communications, Swalekh Pad—a web-based document management tool developed by Odia techies—enables content creation and editing of Odia and Hindi texts online without requiring any external tools on your device.The tool, which will be available from Thursday, is free for users.
“Since the advent of the internet, there has been a need for content and tools to use native languages. The existing tools don’t provide an intuitive text editing experience. For example, if a user wants to correct the spelling of an Odia word, due to incorrect cursor behavior and script semantics, they are often forced to delete the entire word rather than just editing the typo,” said Vivekananda Pani, co-founder of Reverie Language Technologies.
Under the campaign ‘Building Language Equity on the Internet,’ Swalekh Pad will empower native language publishers, content creators, and government officials to use fonts of their choice while ensuring that the reader’s experience remains seamless, Pani added.
Describing the challenges faced by native language users, Pani explained that most documents currently use Unicode-based fonts, which are often OpenType. “Options with OpenType fonts are limited because font designers struggle to create many styles and varieties, as the format is too complex and requires significant technical skills beyond their design strengths. This has hindered the growth of Indic language fonts in Unicode, leaving writers with just a handful of options.
As a result, most Indian language documents today are created using legacy tools that rely on legacy fonts for style and are published in PDF format. However, the PDF format loses functionality such as searching, copying, and quoting. Swalekh Pad ensures the use of both Unicode and non-Unicode fonts, allowing users to work in native languages as seamlessly as they do in English,” he explained.
The inspiration for Swalekh Pad also came from the challenges faced by government officials, who are often required to work with non-Unicode font families for native languages or are not allowed to use online platforms like Google Docs.
This forces them to navigate the complexities of native language scripts. Swalekh Pad has already been used for Hindi and Marathi, and work is underway to develop tools for 22 native languages of India.