Home » Khmer Unicode | Khmer Fonts | Cambodian Fonts

As computer and internet industry gain influence and market in Cambodia, several types of Khmer fonts have been developed as well, such as Khek font, Limon font, Zero-Space font, and many others just to name a few. Most of them were not developed by using Unicode or meet the guideline of the Unicode Standards. However, all of these fonts have been widely utilized with word processing, such as Word in Microsoft Office. Because many of these fonts were neither developed using Unicode Standards nor adopted by makers of World Wide Web (WWW) browsers, many Khmer fonts were not readable without special library drivers.

"Khmer Unicode" by KhmerOS

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, but it has not yet widely utilized or built-in as part internet browsers or software applications. It is, however, gradually becoming popular among users/developers in Cambodia. Khmer Unicode has been developed to use in platforms such as:

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

Khmer Unicode For MS Window Vista:
Microsoft Window Vista comes with Khmer Unicode built-in, but required you to set it up as below instruction. Download Instruction PDF file: How to Set Up Khmer Unicode on Your Window Vista (by Han So)

Khmer Unicode For Window XP:
For MS Window XP, please follow the below instruction to download and install it. If you install the Khmer Unicode in your computer system correctly, you should be able at least to view the web site in Khmer via Mozilla FireFox, MS IE, Opera, and Safari. After installing it and you would like to see if you can read/view the page in Khmer Unicode, open your FireFox browser, and go to all these addresses http://search.cambodia.org/kh/, Radio Free Asia (http://www.rfa.org/khmer/), http://www.google.com.kh/(only in FireFox), http://km.wikipedia.org. To type in khmer, you are recommended to read the Instruction, "Documents How to Write" and follow the Keyboard Layout.

If your MS Window XP has Service Pack 2 installed, you can view the pages of Radio Free Asia (http://www.rfa.org/khmer/) in Khmer via Internet Exploer 6.0 or higher. In this case, RFA utilizes WEFT to have the pages viewed in Khmer even without Khmer Unicode installed.

How to install Khmer Unicode (KhmerUnicode2.0.0.exe) on Your Window XP

1. Download KhmerUnicode2.0.0.zip (version 2.0.0)
2. Use a Zip softwares to Extract the KhmerUnicode2.0.0.zip
3. Installation:
   1. 
      Double click on this KhmerUnicode2.0.0.exe icon
      
      
   2. 
      Click "Next" as indicating by the arrow
      
      
   3. 
      Click "Next" as indecating by the arrow
      
      
   4. 
      It may take minutes to wait...
      
      
   5. 
      Click "Finish"
      
      
   6. 
      At the bottom-corner of your computer screen, you should see this image that allow you to select either CA: Catalan or EN:English (United States) for Writing (Typing). For writing in Khmer, you need to select CA:Catalan.

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

Khmer Fonts Using TrueType

If a computer system and/or software uses TrueType fonts, then Khek font as described below works perfectly.

• Khek font is developed by Khek Brothers, one of the earliest groups designing high quality Khmer fonts. Khek font was primarily made for use with Microsoft products running on Windows platform such as the various Windows versions from 3.x all the way to the current Vista. It also runs on Apple computers including Macintosh and the current family of iMacs. Khek font is the most popular among users in the United States and other oversea countries. Learn more
• Limon font and ABC Zero-Space font are traditional fonts developed using “Legacy Encodings”, which is not part Unicode Standards. 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 web page so that Khmer fonts can be readable by web page viewers. This WEFT tool is widely used by popular sites such as Everday.com.kh, KasSanTePheapDaily, Embassy of the United States, and many more. Indeed, the pages can be viewed in MS Internet Exploer mostly. Developers can use any type of Khmer fonts by embedding fonts in the object and link it or use it as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in the web pages. Download the Tool

Khmer OpenType by Microsoft

Microsoft created an OpenType font and has been supporting it as standard, while Apple created ATT. In 2004 the OpenType font was adopted and supported by Adobe. Font developers creating Khmer fonts can use OpenType standard. Learn more

Notes: This page does not focus on the technical parts of how Khmer fonts were created or the fundamentals of Khmer Unicode. But it does show how to utilize Khmer fonts 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