Jason vs. The Keyman

One of my professors asked me to figure out how to type Unicode IPA into Toolbox, a morpho-syntactic analysis program from SIL. Learning to use Toolbox was easy and fun. They have created a full set of tutorials to help you discover all the features. It's pretty impressive software.

The problem comes in trying to use IPA. Toolbox claims you can do it by using Keyman, keyboard overlay software from Tavultesoft. My professor spent several days trying to make it work before handing off to me. As it turned out, I managed it in a couple of frustrating hours. The trouble is that in order for it to work properly, you have to adjust Toolbox, Keyman, and XP, and make sure you have a Unicode IPA font installed. The instructions for each of these operations are in different places, and some of them aren't very clear.

It would have been so much easier if all of the instructions had been in the same place, so I decided to write down what I did and make it as clear as possible. Here it is: Keyman Setup Instructions

If you know nothing of Toolbox, but would love to be able to easily type IPA into Word docs, follow the same instructions but ignore any parts having to do with Toolbox.

I'm sorry if these instructions don't work for you. I don't do tech support. All I can say is Good luck (but I can say it in several languages).

(If you need help installing the font, these instructions are very good.)