Bengali font on Max OS X 10.6

Mac OS X 10.6 does not come with default support for Indian languages. Being a Bengali, I want to read and write in my mother tongue. Here is a step by step procedure to get Bengali support in Mac OS X 10.6.

1. Get bengali fonts in a format supported by Mac OS
• by default Mac supports the ttf format and not the newer Open Type format
• one of the best in terms of readability is "Ekushey Lohit" (একুশে লোহিত)
• download the font and save it in your Mac
2. Installing the font in your Mac
• Open the application called "Font Book". It comes by default with OS X 10.6.
• Drag and drop the saved TTF font file to the Fonts column of Font Book
• The font will get installed within 5-10 seconds
3. Using the bengali fonts
• Usually the font should be used immediately by applications like Firefox and Safari, so you should be able to see any bengali text like "বিজ্ঞান ভড়"
• In case you cannot see bengali text, just restart the system for the fonts to load

Please note that basically this is a technique for adding fonts to the OS, as default support for Unicode is already present. So in essence this same methodology should also work work with other languages.

More fonts for Mac can be found using a variety of online resources. Bangla Onkur a project that converts Open Type format fonts to TTF format for Mac.