Compared

What each Amharic keyboard writes

The themes, the colours and the word prediction all leave with the keyboard the day you change it. One thing stays: the text you wrote. So there is one question worth asking — does real Unicode text come out of this tool, or bytes that belong to one font? This page answers that, and it keeps what it can evidence apart from what it cannot.

ውጤት

Two kinds of output, and the difference shows up late

Unicode. What is in the file is the Amharic character itself. It reads the same on a phone, in a browser, in an email, in a search box — and it does not change when the program you typed it in leaves your machine.

Font bytes. What is in the file is Latin letters; it looks like Amharic only because that vendor’s font draws shapes over them. Send it somewhere the font is not installed and Latin letters are all that is left. Nothing is damaged — that is what the file held all along.

This site does not know about the second kind in theory. It holds tables for 14 different legacy encodings and runs a converter built from them; between them they reach 287 Ethiopic codepoints, which is 87.1% of the core syllable block. That is the evidence this page is written from.

The font it asks you to install is the tell

Every legacy table on this site records the vendor font it was checked against — each mapping was verified by rendering it in that font. The file names themselves show the shape:

Vendor fonts, read out of the tables

  • ALXETHIO.ttf
  • Addis98.ttf
  • Agafari_Rejim.ttf
  • ETH-1.ttf
  • ETH-2.ttf
  • ETSAMIB.ttf
  • Etsaba.ttf
  • Geez2.ttf
  • VG2000T.ttf
  • vg2title.ttf

A tool that needs a font named after itself writes what only that font can read. A tool that asks you to install Noto Sans Ethiopic writes Unicode, because Unicode is the only thing Noto knows. The rule asks you to trust nobody, and it settles a product in about a minute on your own machine.

The ones whose output is established

Every row has something behind it: either a table in this repository and a measurement taken on the software itself, or the publisher’s own sentence, quoted, at the address it was read. Quotations are left in the language they were written in.

PowerGeez

Both, by mode

Concepts Data SystemsWindows

This site’s PowerGeez table was built from the product’s own driver file, so its legacy output is in hand. It also ships a Unicode driver — the seven vowel-order keys were typed in that mode. Which one you get is decided by the mode and the font, not by the name of the product.

  • First-hand: This site’s table was built from the product’s own driver file joined to its Unicode counterpart, and every mapping in it was checked by rendering it in the vendor font.
  • First-hand: The seven vowel-order keys were typed into the product itself, on a Windows machine running it, in phonetic mode with Unicode output.
  • The publisher’s own words: The SIL Ethiopic Power-G keyboard enables typing in all Ethiopic Saba Fidel scripts using the keyboarding sequences found in the “Power Ge’ez (Phonetic)” keyboard from Concepts Data Systems. keyman.com

Visual Geez

Font bytes

Windows

Two tables, one product line. Each reads the same byte as a different letter, so no program can tell you for certain which one your document is — the converter shows you both readings and lets you pick.

  • First-hand: There are two tables here for one product line, and they read the same bytes as different letters.

SIL Ethiopic Power-G

Unicode

SIL EthiopiaWindows · macOS · Linux · Web

A free layout that keeps PowerGeez’s key sequences and writes Unicode. The keys your hands already know, with something else coming out of the file — this page’s argument in one row.

  • The publisher’s own words: The SIL Ethiopic Power-G keyboard enables typing in all Ethiopic Saba Fidel scripts using the keyboarding sequences found in the “Power Ge’ez (Phonetic)” keyboard from Concepts Data Systems. keyman.com

GFF Amharic

Unicode

Ge’ez Frontier Foundation and SIL GlobalWindows · macOS · Linux · Android · iOS · Web

An Amharic layout on the Keyman engine. Its own documentation says the font it needs is one supporting the Unicode standard — which settles what comes out of it.

  • The publisher’s own words: It requires a font supporting Ethiopic script under the Unicode 3.0 standard (two historic punctuation marks require Unicode 4.1 support). help.keyman.com

Lexilogos Amharic keyboard

Unicode

Web

This is not a keyboard. It is a page you type into and copy out of, so you cannot type straight into Word or a message. The font it asks you to install is Noto Sans Ethiopic — which is what says its output is Unicode.

  • The publisher’s own words: Download & install the font Noto Sans Ethiopic www.lexilogos.com
  • The publisher’s own words: Copy [Ctrl]+[C] & Paste [Ctrl]+[V] www.lexilogos.com

A product is not a side

Every listicle splits these products into two camps, old and new. What was measured does not support that. One product can carry two drivers, one writing legacy bytes and one writing Unicode — and in the other direction there is a free layout that keeps that same product’s key sequences and writes Unicode. The question is not which keyboard. It is which mode, and which font.

The ones this page will not answer for you

These are known by name and widely used. Nobody here has run any of them, and nothing this site has read says which of the two they write. So each one is printed with its name, and where the others carry an output these say what they are: not established here. A guess would look like it made the page more useful. It would do the opposite.

GeezIME

Not established here

GeezLabWindows · macOS · Android · iOS · Web

The publisher describes the tool on its own site. Nothing this site has read of that description says which of the two it writes, and nobody here has run it — so its output is left unstated.

  • The publisher’s own words: GeezIME is a trusted Ge’ez input method for 15 years, enabling millions to type in Tigrinya, Amharic, Tigre, and Blin across all platforms www.geezlab.com

HaHu Amharic Keyboard

Not established here

Robel EqubasilassieAndroid

The developer’s own page names the tool and who wrote it. Nothing this site has read of it says which of the two it writes, so this page names neither.

FynGeez

Not established here

Android

Only the address it is published at was confirmed here. Nothing about its output was read.

  • Only the page it is published on: its address, and nothing this site has read there about its output. play.google.com

Agerigna Amharic Keyboard

Not established here

Android

Only the address it is published at was confirmed here. Nothing about its output was read.

  • Only the page it is published on: its address, and nothing this site has read there about its output. play.google.com

Amharic Keyboard by Desh

Not established here

Android

Only the address it is published at was confirmed here. Nothing about its output was read.

  • Only the page it is published on: its address, and nothing this site has read there about its output. play.google.com

Answer it yourself, in about a minute

What this page leaves open, you can settle yourself on the tool in your hand — without taking anyone’s word for it.

  • Type one Amharic word with the keyboard you are testing.
  • Copy it and paste it into your browser’s address bar, or into the box on the writing tool.
  • If it reads as Amharic, it is Unicode. If it comes out as Latin letters or boxes, it is font bytes.

Why it works: that box has never heard of the vendor’s font. A real character draws anywhere. A font byte has nothing to draw it with once it leaves the font.

If what you have is old bytes

The document is not lost. The document converter reads 14 encodings, in your browser, with nothing uploaded. There are pages for the two you are most likely to be holding — PowerGeez and Visual Geez — and if you are not sure the fault is an encoding at all, the three faults tells you how to tell them apart by eye.