Multicultural Services and Programs
 Reading and Writing in Your Language on Library Computers |
You can now read, search and write in other languages on Toronto Public Library computers. Websites can be viewed in languages such as:
| Arabic |
Greek |
Korean |
Tamil |
| Armenian |
Gujarati |
Polish |
Turkish |
| Bengali |
Hebrew |
Portuguese |
Ukrainian |
| Chinese |
Hungarian |
Punjabi |
Urdu |
| Farsi |
Hindi |
Russian |
Vietnamese |
| French |
Italian |
Serbian (Cyrillic) |
|
| German |
Japanese |
Spanish (Mexico) |
|
The languages available reflect the immigrant composition of Toronto and consist of top languages from census and library circulation statistics.
How to View Pages in Non-Western Text on Library
Computers |
- If you know the URL or address of a website in a non-English language, type it in the address window and press <Enter>
- Usually the Internet Explorer browser detects the language (character set) of the transmitted page. You can then begin reading in your language
- If you are unable to read the page, click on View at the top of the screen, then Encoding, then select the appropriate language
- If the page is still unreadable, click on the Refresh
 button.
Composing Email, Searching Online and Writing in Other
Languages on Library Computers |
You can now type and receive email (Hotmail or Yahoo) messages in other languages.
It is also possible to type in other languages on word processing workstations.You can create Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in your own language.
| Writing Text and Searching Online |
 Click on the keyboard language indicator (EN) at the bottom right corner of your screen beside the clock.
- If you don’t see the capital letters EN, click anywhere in the task bar and it will appear.
- Scroll up the language list and click on the language of your choice.
- The code will change to a 2-letter code – for example Spanish is ES
- Make sure the cursor is active in the search/text box (click in the box, if it is not) and start typing. The keyboard should start behaving like it should for that language. If not, click on your language once more. Note that the language will change in the active window and not in other open windows.
NOTE: Always remember to click in the search box first in order to type and activate the language of your choice
If you need a visual representation of the keyboard in your language, such as Russian, Greek or other non-Roman script languages, you will  need to activate Visual Keyboard first.
Visual Keyboard is a Microsoft program, which displays the keyboard layout for a particular language
Select Visual Keyboard from the Start menu
The Visual Keyboard will pop up and can be dragged to any spot on  the screen
You can now know which keys correspond to the ones on your keyboard.
You can use either the regular keyboard or click on the keys on these visual keyboards with your mouse.
These guides provide instructions on viewing, searching and
writing text in other languages. |
They are available in pdf format.
*You will need the free Adobe® Acrobat Reader® to view and print the .pdf files.
[Multicultural Services and Programs][Telephone Interpreters at every Library][Children's Programs] [Learning to Use Library Computers and the Internet][Legal Aid Counseling][Immigrant Settlement Information][English Conversation Meetings]
Updated on: March 17, 2006
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