Google Transliteration
Type in English, then leave a space.
Have you used Google Labs? It hosts many of Google's projects while they are still in progress. People can try a product, or use it as a kind of beta. A lot of people never notice it is there.
One tool in Google Labs that is easy to miss, and worth opening, is Google Transliteration. You type in English and it turns the word into another language: Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, and many others, including languages outside India. The editor has the usual tools: cut, copy, paste, print, undo, redo, text colour, and font size.
Open Google Labs, choose the language, type the word, and press space. The word is transliterated. For Telugu, Telugu becomes తెలుగు. The same feature shows up in Blogger, Orkut, and Knol.
Two parts of it are especially useful: the dictionary, and Unicode.
The dictionary can move a word from one language to another. Do not expect it to be excellent. It is still in Labs. As of this writing, it works well enough. With Unicode you can pick special characters as well as ordinary ones.
You can also download the Google Transliteration IME and type in your language when you are offline. Download it and install it. You may need to be online for the install. The install itself takes about ten minutes.
To type, open the language bar and switch it from the default, English, to your language. You can then write, or chat, in that language. It works with online applications and with offline ones.
The gap I kept hitting was fonts. Whatever you type appears in one default font. I wanted the text in a face I had chosen.
If you know how to add fonts to Google Indic Transliteration, I would like to hear how.
First written in 2010 on virtual eye.