As computers and Internet industry influenced and marketed in Cambodia, several Khmer fonts have been developed such as Khek Fonts, Limon Fonts, and Zero-Space Fonts and lots more. Most of them were not developed by using Unicode nor meet the guideline of the Unicode Standard. However, all these Fonts have been widely utilized with word processing, Microsoft Office. Because of not using Unicode nor adopted by makers of World Wide Web (WWW) Browsers, Khmer Fonts have not been readable.

Khmer Fonts Using TrueType

If computer System and/or Software use TrueType Fonts, the below fonts will works with perfectly.

• Khek Fonts is developed by Khek Brothers, one of the earliest group designing the high quality of Khmer Fonts. It has been made for use with Microsoft Office running on Window platform such as the Microsoft Window 3x, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista and Apple Computers (Macintosh). The fonts are the most popular among the users in the United States and oversea. Learn more
  
• Limon Fonts and ABC Zero-Space Fonts are traditional Fonts using “legacy encodings” which is not Unicode. These two fonts are free and can be downloaded on this page under download section.

WEFT for Web Developers

Microsoft developed Web Embedding Fonts Tool (WEFT) that allows Web developers to create “font object” and link it to the Web page so that Khmer fonts can be readable on the Web page. This WEFT are wisely used by such as popular Radio Free Asia, Everday.com.kh, KasSanTePheapDaily, Embassy of the United States, and more. Developers can use any type of Khmer fonts by embedding fonts in the object and link it and/or use it as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in the web pages. Download the Tool

Khmer OpenType by Microsoft

Microsoft has its standard by creating and supporting OpenType fonts while Apple crates ATT. In 2004, the OpenType is also adopted and supported by Adobe. Font Developers in creating Khmer Fonts can also use OpenType standard. Learn more

KhmerOS Developing Khmer Unicode

Khmer Software Initiative(KhmerOS), National Information Communications Technology Development Authority (NIDA) and Open Institute joined to create a project for developing OpenSource Software that can accommodate Khmer Unicode-based Fonts. Khmer Unicode is a part of their project, and it is yet widely utilized and/or built-in for Internet browsers and/or Software, but it gradually becomes popular among users in Cambodia. This Khmer Unicode has developed to use with such as

• OpenOffice (Word Processing),
• OpenSUSE (Linux based Operation System),
• Khmer Email Application (Thunderbird-based email application),
• Mekhala (FireFox-based Internet Browser)

How to type Khmer Unicode in English (PDF)
How to type Khmer Unicode in Khmer (PDF)
KkhmerOS Download Page

If you are using Window 2000 or Window XP, you can download Khmer Unicode Installer under download section. After installing it, you need to install KhmerOS Keyboard Driver. You can obtain it under download section, then follow below instruction.

KhmerOS Keyboard Driver (available only for Windows 2000 & XP)

Installing the Khmer Unicode Keyboard Driver by right click on the file KhmerKbd.msi and follow instruction till displaying a success message.

Once installed, you need to go to Start-->Settings-->Control Panel and open the Regional and Language Settings control panel. In there, you must select the Languages tab and click on Details. Click then on Add and select Catalan language (there is no Khmer, and the sign for Catalan is CA, which we can be consider to mean "Cambodian"). Right under, in the Keyboard Layout/IME box, select "Khmer Unicode Keyboard (NIDA 1.0)". Click on OK as many times as needed to get out of the control panel... and you are ready. On the lower right part of your screen you will have the initials for your normal language (EN if you work in English), if you click there you will be able to change to Catalan (CA), which will turn your keyboard into a Khmer keyboard (Shift Alt also works).

Notes: This page does not focus on the technical parts of how Khmer fonts was created nor the fundamental of Khmer Unicode, but how to utilize Khmer font and where to get Khmer fonts.

References and Khmer Fonts Resources:
http://projects.thedanielmay.com/khmerfonts/unicode.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/khmerot/default.htm
http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Khmer.html