Once every few years I have need of a word processor or editor using the Cyrillic alphabet (used in Russian and some other languages). But I am hoping not to fool with new software.
It would be neat if there were a site that had a Cyrillic keyboard that you could click on with your mouse, and a text box in which the type would build up as one big graphic that you could cut and paste. This would not require any special software.
How would that special software work, anyway? There are maybe 10 more characters in that alphabet than in English - it couldn’t just be mapped letter-to-letter.
I looked around, found lotsa software products and even free fonts but nothing like I describe - anybody know of a site that does something like that?
Cnacubo? Spaseebo? Aw, nuts, you can’t even pretend… Kak zhal…
Well, the website itself I don’t know about. As long as you have the correct font and codepage installed on your computer, or the page has access to the fonts somewhere, then I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to have JavaScript do the job you want.
As far as actually mapping your keyboard to Cyrillic letters, a lot of the Cyrillic does get mapped to non-alphabetic characters, like |, ~, etc. There are mappings that are phonetic, where the letters that sound like the other letters get mapped to those letters (letters letters letters), and mappings that I suppose mimic the keyboard layouts in Russia.
That URL will bring you to megabook.ru–there’s a small link next to the search window labeled “keyboard.” Click on it and you should be in business.
I was thinking, though, why not just use an online translation engine? If you have a strong enough command of Russian, then you should be able to spot any errors. I like this translation site: