re Outlook and Cyrillic encoding

Wed Sep 5 17:08:31 UTC 2001

Dear SEELANGers,

Not long ago, Elena Kobzeva-Herzog wrote in about trouble encoding messages
in Cyrillic using the mail program Outlook by Microsoft. Richard Robin wrote
back, and expressed similar frustration. I have spent no little time working
with various encoding issues and HTML, so I'll share what I've learned.

(N.B.: My comments below pertain to Outlook on the PC platform, though I
think they are more or less the same for Macs running Outlook. The latest OS
X on Macs is supposedly "Russian ready," though when I played around with
them recently I did not find that to be at all the case, and to get web
sites and HTML-encoded emails to appear correctly, ended up needing to
install the St. Petersburg Mac Club software, which I've found to be very
good.)

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Outlook 2000, in my experience, handles Cyrillic encoding very well. Below,
for instance, is Russian, sent via Outlook:

Средь народного шума и успеха,
На вокзалах и пристанях,
Смотрит века могучая веха
И бровей начинается взмах.

(If you cannot read the stanza above, then see below for how to display
Russian-encoded documents.)

There are, granted, a few steps you have to go through.

1. First, you MUST use real  encoding, that is to say that you cannot use a
font set with graphical representations of Cyrillic characters. (If you've
never done this, see below for how to "convert" your PC to use Cyrillic.) To
switch encodings, go to the Format>Encoding>More and choose KOI-8. (There
are reasons to choose Windows encoding, since it allows for more characters
(like, say, e-accent-grave), but KOI-8 remains the standard encoding for
Russian sites on the Web, and probably for encoded emails as well.) Keep in
mind that KOI-8 handles Latin-alphabet encoding just fine -- i.e., you can
type in Russian and in English. I keep my encoding as KOI-8 all the time.

2. Switch to the Russian keyboard (again, see below) by clicking the EN
button in you system tray (lower right corner), and choosing Russian (RU).

3. Type away in Russian.

4. Send the message.

TROUBLESHOOTING:
  a.. Elena writes: "The messages come to the students with ???? instead of
Russian." Two likely problems: 1) They must use a mail reader capable of
reading HTML encoded documents (i.e., they cant use PINE or ELM on Unix). 2)
They must MANUALLY switch whatever mail reader they are using to display the
message with KOI-8 encoding. If they're using Outlook, they simply follow
the same directions as above: Format>Encoding>More and choose KOI-8R. If
they're using some web-based reader (Hotmail, etc.), they must manually
change the encoding option to KOI-8: View>Encoding>More>KOI-8R. I suggest
including a little blurb at the beginning or end of emails encoded in
Russian explaining how to switch the encoding.
  b.. So far as I have ever been able to figure, you can't send a message
with a subject line in Russian. Perhaps if you fiddled with the HTML code
itself, you could, but I suggest transliterating the Russian or just not
worrying about a subject line.
  c.. Spell checking: Outlook probably has a Russian spell check module, but
I always compose Russian messages in Word, use grammar and spell check
there, and then cut and paste the message in Outlook (remembering to set the
encoding to KOI-8)
  d.. Robin commented that he had had trouble with Cyrillic in his address
book --I have a lot of Russian info in my notes sections of the Contacts
list, and it seems OK. But I'm sure there are flaws in the program.

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OK, so if you've never installed the software to type Cyrillic, below are
the instructions I've written for my Russian students.

Typing in Russian requires font-sets and a homophonic keyboard.

WINDOWS:

Here are the best step-by-step directions I've found for Cyrilliczing
Windows:

1. Click on Start menu.
2. Open Settings - Control Panel.
3. Double click Keyboard.
4. Single click Language tab.
5. Check "Enable indicator on taskbar".
6. Single click Add.
7. Pick Russian language.
8. Single click OK.
9. Single click OK on the "Keyboard Properties" screen.

If your computer prompts you for original Windows disk, insert it and OK the
Windows prompt. If you do not have the disk, download Lang.exe, put it into
some temporary folder and double click on it to self-extract. Return to
"Add/Remove Programs" menu. Use "Have disk" and "Browse" buttons to point to
a folder where you extracted Lang.exe. Then click OK to start installation.
Switch between your default layout and the Russian layout by simultaneously
pressing left ALT and SHIFT.

Tips:
An indicator on the taskbar shows what keyboard you are in at the moment.
You may assign different keys to switch between layouts.
(from About.com)

Once you've done the above, it's time to change the keyboard layout to a
simple to learn phonetic variant of your QWERTY keyboard and instructions.
It will give you a keyboard like this:

Я Ш Е Р Т Ы У И О П Ю Щ
А С Д Ф Г Ч Й К Л Ь Ж
З Х Ц В Б Н М

Notice the E is where the E is on your keyboard, the K where the K is, etc.
The letter Ш is where the "w" is, and Ц is where the "c" is. The only tricky
ones are really those on the far right of the keyboard (ю, щ, э, ь, ж). Oh,
and the ё is the tilde (~). Generally, good typists can learn to type
quickly on the homophonic keyboard within a few hours

Hope this helps some you out there.

best,

<|><|><|><|><|><|><|>
Michael A. Denner
Russian Studies Department
Campus Unit 8361
Stetson University
DeLand, FL 32720
904.822.7265

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