Russian for the Macintosh

 
 
Enabling the Cyrillic keyboard in OS X.

Installing the Cyrillic fonts in OS X is a much easier than in the previous operating systems. Follow the steps below:
   
  1. Open the System Preferences panel and click on International.
   
 
 
  2. Select the languages you would like to enable by checking the appropriate box. Close the System Preferences panel.
   
 
 
  3. An American flag will now appear in the top menu of your computer. Simply click on the flag and select the Russian option to begin typing in Russian.
   
 
 
  4. Once you have enabled the Russian language on your computer, you will be able to type in Russian in most applications, including email. You will not need to set up your Web browsers to view Russian Web pages. In OSX, they can detect and view Russian text automatically.
 
 
Installing the Cyrillic Language Kit in OS 9.

To install the Cyrillic fonts, you will need to have the system CD's that came with your computer. Insert the CD into the computer and it should open automatically. Double click on the Software Installers icon and follow these steps:

   
  1. Within the Software Installers folder, double click on the Language Kits folder.
   
 
 
  2. Double click on the Install Language Kits icon.
   
 
 
  3. Select the languages you would like to install, by clicking in the box next to each one. You can select more than one language. When finished, click on the the Install button.
   
 
 
  4. The language kits will be installed and your computer will restart. Once it has restarted, you will notice an American flag in the upper right corner. Click on the flag and you will be see a menu of languages that you have installed.
   
 
     
 

5. In the image above, there are both the Russian and the Cyrillic-QWERTY options. Russian refers to the standard Russian keyboard and QWERTY refers to the phonetic keyboard based on the American keyboard. Unless you are familiar with the Russian keyboard layout, most people will find it easier to type with the QWERTY. Installing the QWERTY keyboard takes a few extra steps. On the CD from which you installed the Language Kit, follow the path by opening the folders shown below:
 
6. When you reach the "Keyboards" folder you should see the 3 options displayed below. Select the Cyrillic-QWERTY icon and drag it to your closed system folder. The computer will add it to the correct location and when you look under the American flag, you should see the QWERTY option.
   
 
 
Setting up Your Web Browser to View Sites in Russian

To view Web Sites in Russian, you must first install the Cyrillic language kit on your computer (see above). Once installed, you can configure your Web browser to use these fonts when necessary. The instructions below are for Netscape, but you can follow the same steps to set up Internet Explorer on the Macintosh.

 
  1. While in Netscape, go to the Preferences option under the Edit menu.
   
  2. Under Appearance, select Fonts.
   
   

   
 

3. Click on the "For the Encoding" button and select Cyrillic.

   
   
   
  4. Make sure that a Cyrillic font is selected for both Variable and Fixed width fonts and click OK. Cyrillic fonts normally have a "CY" after the name, such as "Geneva CY". If they are not selected, simply select them from the font menus. Next click on the button stating "Use my fonts, overriding page-specified fonts" and click OK.
   
   
   
  5. You can test these fonts by visiting a Russian Web site such as http://www.gazeta.ru/. You should be able to view these pages in Russian.
   
  6. If you visit a site that you know is in Russian yet your browser is displaying nonsense characters, select the Character Set option under the View menu and select Cyrillic. Sometimes the browser does not recognize that it should display a Cyrillic font, and choosing the Character Set will help it to do so.