latviski.lv

This is the current operating system running on all of the latest Macintosh computers. Also known as OS X 10.4 not much has changed since Mac OS X Panther (Mac OS X 10.3) in terms of Latvian language support. The keyboard driver works well (based on either the Option or ~ key) and all Cocoa-based applications (iLife, iCal, TextEdit, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, iTunes, iPhoto, GarageBand) work beautifully with Latvian fonts. Non Unicode applications such as MS Word X and AppleWorks will still have problems with Latvian fonts and you will need extra software such as Baltic Utilities.

Through the International System Preferences it is possible to select Latvian dates, time and number formats as well as the Latvian keyboard driver.

The Language tab allows you to drag Latviešu to the top of the list, but will cause minimum changes to the System in terms of translated application menus and dialogs.

The Formats tab allows you to choose the Latvia (Latvian) region which automatically brings up the Latvian date, time and number formats. Unfortunately the short form date formats are still not correct (similar to the US short date format) and hopefully this will be addressed in OS X Leopard.

The Input Menu tab allows you to select the Latvian keyboard which belongs to the Central European script. It is great to see that Apple has adopted the Option key approach to obtain the Latvian diacritical letters.