Have you ever encountered difficulties when typing Maltese on your computer? Did the Maltese letters in your documents turn into odd-looking symbols? Then this IT manual is what you need! It’s simple and very user-friendly.

The manual guides the users on how to activate the Language Bar in Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista and 7) so they can write documents (in Word, Excel and other software) and emails using the Maltese keyboard layout, which can then be read by anyone from anywhere. Each step is illustrated with screenshots.

The Language Bar (with the Maltese keyboard layout) allows the user to use the most common fonts (like Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, Cambria, Comic Sans, Tahoma and others), eliminating the possibility that the Maltese letters appear as strange symbols (like [ ] { } ` ).

The manual insists that one should not use any Maltese fonts, which are not compatible with Unicode (UTF-8), such as Arius, Malta, Maltnen, Maltv, Maltaard, and Tornado.

It shows users how to use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding in emails so they can write and read emails both in Maltese and English properly.

The manual answers many FAQs that the National Council for the Maltese Language received as feedback from those who used the first edition of this manual, published in 2008.

The manual can be downloaded as a pdf document from www.kunsilltalmalti.gov.mt/filebank/documents/kompjuter.pdf and any queries can be emailed directly to the Technical Committee for IT: [email protected]. Facebook Group of the Technical Committee for IT: Il-Malti u l-Informatika (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=388769391001)