Introduction

This section contains basic guidance on working with Ukrainian text on computers. As with other languages which use the Cyrillic script, this is much more straightforward nowadays than it used to be, provided you have relatively recent software on your computer. Reading Ukrainian text can be as simple as opening the relevant document, email or web page. To be able to write in Ukrainian you will need to configure your computer to allow switching to a Ukrainian keyboard layout when required. In most cases you will not need any special additional software.

The following pages give guidance on how to configure your computer and how to work in Ukrainian with word processor documents, web pages and emails. The notes are aimed primarily at users of computers set up to work by default with an English keyboard, with English menus and commands, etc. Also, since the overwhelming majority of personal computers use a Microsoft Windows operating system, such as Windows XP, most of the notes in this section are aimed at Windows users. Broadly similar principles, however, apply to Apple Mac computers (see the Links page).

If you have problems reading or writing Ukrainian text with the software on your computer, or if you wish to read more about the subject, you may find the Links page useful.