Avro Keyboard

The Avro Keyboard program is a Bangla typing tool available for a range of Windows operating systems

A Review of Avro Keyboard

The Internet is global and therefore there is always a way you can find to communicate in a different language. Enter the Avro Keyboard, a tool that was developed for Windows that allows you to communicate fluently in the Bangla language. This is listed as a free software tool for Windows that's compatible with a range of different operating systems, including XP, Vista, 7, 10 and its newest iteration, 11.

The first version of Avro Keyboard was released in March of 2003, celebrating the Independence Day of Bangladesh. The idea was to offer a way for people to communicate in the Bangla language with a keyboard that offered the same sort of functionality as a western English QWERTY keyboard. After many different updates, this software is still available for users who would like to communicate in Bangla.

What Avro Keyboard is and What it Does

Avro Keyboard is a piece of keyboard software, not a physical keyboard. It transforms your existing keyboard into a keyboard in the Bangla language, featuring various new keys and features that enable communication in a different language. It supports English-to-Bangla phonetics while offering an overlay of a traditional keyboard layout. In other words, it doesn't change your basic QWERTY keyboard; it simply adds Bangla over-top of it, so that it's easy to use for anyone who understands the Bangla language.

The keyboard software enables this via a feature called a "Transliteration scheme," which combines a wide range of English-to-Bangla software packages into one centralized program that creates a keyboard translation tool. For people who speak Bangla, this was all created to make perfect sense. For those that don't speak the language, this program is likely going to be too confusing and foreign to use.

How Avro Keyboard Works

The Avro Keyboard works just like most other digital keyboard programs out there, except that it installs the Bangla language in digital form. This creates a very different type of keyboard, as the Bangla language is a range of symbols much like a lot of other different Asian languages. Though these symbols are just letters for people fluent in the Bangladeshi language. It essentially just shows a digital keyboard on your monitor whose keys are changed from QWERTY to Bangla.

This means it's very easy to operate and opens up with a simple click, and you use your mouse to go through and type. If you have a touch-screen monitor, this keyboard program doesn't have that functionality available, so you will still have to use your mouse to go through and click the Bangla keys. This makes the process much slower than typing on a real keyboard, but it is a very accurate program that provides the proper Bangla language.

Exceptions exist with the newest version of this program for Windows 10 and 11, which will allow you to use the "Touch Typing" feature.

Features of Avro Keyboard

In addition to the "Touch Typing" feature mentioned above, the Avro Keyboard has a lot of other features, including the Phonetic Typing feature. This allows people to phonetically get through the Bangla language if they're not fluent in it already. The Mouse Based feature is available in all versions, and it's the only typing feature available for older operating systems, meaning you won't get the Touch Typing.

It also offers users a Bangla Spell Checker feature, so that they will never have to worry about spelling a word wrong in the language. The keyboard is also able to be customized, so you can move keys around if you want to. This isn't recommended unless you're fluent in Bangla, but it is available if needed.

Avro Keyboard Pros and Cons

Pros of Avro Keyboard

• Keyboard offers the full and accurate Bangla language
• Touch Typing features available on the newest program versions
• Program features a spell checker and other assistance tools
• Free to download and use, with very user-friendly features
• Able to customize various features to make it easier to use

Cons of Avro Keyboard

• A little bare bones and doesn't have a ton of functionality
• Only a helpful program for Bangla and nothing else
• Dictionary support isn't very thorough with the language