Over the years a number of Tibetan fonts have been ‘freely’ available on the web. Unfortunately, most sites listing Tibetan fonts only provide links to the original provider of the font, many of which have since been removed or obfuscated. Moreover, several common fonts are only available as Windows .exe files, making it difficult to load them on Mac or Linux computers. Together, these factors make it nearly impossible to obtain the proper legacy Tibetan fonts needed to read certain Tibetan-language websites.
If all sites were already using Unicode for Tibetan, we wouldn’t have this problem; any Tibetan font could be used in place of the font intended on the site. But sadly, the day when everyone has switched to Unicode still seems far far away.
This site provides all known ‘semi-free’ Tibetan fonts I have been able to obtain, and all fonts necessary to be able to read websites or documents in particular legacy encodings, for direct download. This is meant purely as a service to the Tibetan-language community and particularly to Tibetans.
The following fonts are made available as .zip files. Recent versions of Windows can directly read zip files without any additional software. Once you download these files you will need to copy the fonts inside the zip files (not the zip files themselves) to the Windows fonts folder (usually C:\Windows\Fonts). If you’re not using Windows but another operating system you probably already know what to do.
The main purepose of this page is to facilitate obtaining the rare legacy fonts needed to read various websites, but I am also providing some Unicode fonts, which should be used for all new content in Tibetan.
This site is aimed at providing the actual font files, not any particular software for inputting Tibetan text. Tibetan input software is available from a number of other sites, but most of it is tied to particular legacy fonts.
ཡིག་གཟུགས་རང་མ་གཏོགས་མཉན་ཆས་༼software༽ གཞན་པ་དྲ་ངོས་འདི་ལ་མེད། གློག་ཀླད་ནང་ཏུ་བོད་ཡིག་བླུག་པའི་ཐབས་ཤེས་མེད། དེ་དགོས་ན་དྲ་རྒྱ་ས་ཆ་གཞན་པ་མང་པོ་ཡོད།
For Unicode Tibetan, Windows Vista provides a Tibetan keyboard configuration, and several keyboards and input methods are available for Windows XP and older versions of Windows as well. In the future I will provide another page detailing how to obtain and install these.
These other sites may be useful to visitors attempting to obtain Tibetan fonts:
བོད་ཡིག་གི་ཡིག་གཟུགས་འཚོལ་ན་གཤམ་གསལ་དྲ་ངོས་རྣམས་ཕན་ཐོགས་ཡིན་ས་རེད།
My name is Rich Felker and you can reach me by email at dalias@aerifal.cx. If you can help me in obtaining other Tibetan fonts for this site I would be most grateful!
ངའི་མིང་ལ་Rich Felker ཟེར་གི་ཡོད། གློག་འཕྲིན་གྱི་ཁ་བྱང་ dalias@aerifal.cx རེད། ང་ལ་མེད་པའི་བོད་ཡིག་གི་ཡིག་གཟུགས་འཚོལ་པའི་རོགས་པ་བྱེད་ན་བཀའ་དྲིན་ཆེ་ཞུ་གི་ཡིན།