The Windows operating system provides a keyboard that will allow you to type in Ukrainian, but this keyboard uses the layout of the Ukrainian typewriter keyboard. While many are able to learn to touch type using this different layout, for most students it is easier to use a remapped keyboard on which there are sound correspondences between the Ukrainian and English letters. These keyboards are known as homophonic (meaning "sounds the same") keyboards. The KU homophonic keyboard attempts to reflect sound correspondences when possible, and to map other letters and symbols for ease of typing. For the purpose of illustration, the layouts are provided below:
Keyboard Layouts
Normal State
Shift State
Alt+Ctrl+Shift State
Installation
Installation of these keyboards is done automatically via a Windows installer file (msi). There is no need to do anything other than download the file and click on the installation file. Everything is put in the correct folder and all of the neccessary registry changes are made for you. The only additional step is to enable the keyboard in the "Regional and Language Options" control panel. You will find a complete explanation of the procedure below.
1) Click here to download the KU Homophonic Ukrainian Keyboard.
Save the file to your desktop and unzip the file. Inside the zipped file you will find an installation package and a folder containing the keyboard .dll file.
2) Click on the KU_UKRA Windows Installer Package. When the installer is finished, the following window will be displayed.
Click the Close button and you are finished with the first part of the process. Now that you have installed the new keyboard, you will need to activate it within Windows.
3) Click on the Start button. Go up to Settings and click on Control Panel. Within the Control Panel, double-click the Regional and Language Options icon .
4) Go to the Languages tab and click the Details... button under "Text Services and Input Languages".
5) Click Add under "Installed Services
6) Find "Ukrainian" in the Input Language list and Homophonic Ukrainian in the Keyboard layout/IME list.
Click the OK in the bottom right of the window to complete this step.
7) At this point your Text Services and Languages window should look like the one below:
Congratulations! You have installed the KU homophonic keyboard.
Once the installation and activation are complete, you can switch back and forth between your foreign language and English keyboards by using the toggle indicator in the taskbar (circled in red below).
If the toggle indicator (which by default should read "En" for English) does not appear in the lower right of your screen, click on the the Language Bar button at the bottom of the Settings tab (see above) and make sure that the "Show the Langauge bar on the desktop" box is checked.
This page last modified June 16, 2009.
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