Indian googler

Fret no more about downloading the rupee symbol on to your computer. The symbol may take a while to appear on the keyboard but can rightaway be typed as a character, thanks to a newly-created font.

Mangalore-based Foradian Technologies Pvt Ltd has created a font called Rupee_Foradian. It can be downloaded from the company’s blogsite — http://blog.foradian.com — and used for free.

The company's CEO Unni Koroth told TOI that it was "something of an amusement to us in this era of technological advancement" that the government of India said it would take more than a year for the symbol to become commercially available. "We thought of doing something about it," he said. The company created a vector image of the new rupee sign and mapped the 'grave accent' symbol — the key just above the tab button on the keyboard — with it. This keystroke was chosen because most users and programmers don't use it.|

Within the hour, the trial version of the font was downloaded 1,100 times. When downloads crossed the 5,000 mark, the company worked on the full version, which it has also made available for free on the site. A YouTube video — www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSfhzuU7Crw — shows how easy it is to use the symbol. Many users of social networking sites have started using it, as have hundreds of bloggers. Version 2.0 of the font was released within 24 hours of the announcement of the rupee symbol.