devanagari for the mac

[Herman Tull]

I imagine everyone on the list is cringing at the subject line.  I apologize.  I know we have had this discussion many times over.  But, I want to ask this in a specific way.  I would like my first year Sanskrit students to work on their devanagari word-processing skills (and my aging eyes find hand-scrawled devanagari less and less agreeable).  I am a pc user, and I find Baraha to be a simple and easily mastered program, with everything in it that first year students need (after all, they are not producing critical editions...just doing their homework).

Is there an equivalent program for the Mac platform?  I have looked over the Indology archive, and I see numerous references to open office.  I use open office for my pc with Baraha, so I am not sure what this means.  Can the Mac version be used in such a way that devanagari text can be entered directly from the keyboard (as is the case with Baraha)? If anyone has experience with using this or another program for the Mac platform, I would appreciate any advice you can provide.  Again, please remember that the parameter here is that I just want something that can be quickly mastered for first year students to use for homework assignments.

Herman Tull
Princeton, NJ

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