The what and how of transliteration What is Transliteration?Transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter. Transliteration attempts to use a one-to-one correspondence and be exact, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. In other words, Transliteration refers to the process by which one reads and pronounces the words and

What is Transliteration?Transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter.  Transliteration attempts to use a one-to-one correspondence and be exact, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words.  In other words, Transliteration refers to the process by which one reads and pronounces the words and sentences of one language using the letters and special symbols of another language.  Thus, transliteration is meant to preserve the sounds of the syllables in words. Transliteration is helpful in situations where one does not know the script of a language but knows to speak and understand the language nevertheless.Some examples of transliteration:
• राजधानी: Typed as “rajdhani”.• भगवान typed as “bhagwaan”• किताब types as “kitaab”• తెలుగు types as “Telugu”• தமிழ் as “Tamil”
What are the requirements?Following are the requirements for Transliteration
• Unicode enabled OS (e.g. Windows XP): Unicode is an encoding standard for characters that gives a unique number to every single character in every single language. It is consistent across all platforms and operating systems.  Most modern operating systems and software libraries have inbuilt support for Unicode.  Though Unicode is universally supported these days, you need at least one Unicode complaint font like 'Mangal' or 'Arial Unicode' installed. Generally such a font is bundled with operating system, very rarely need should arise to download them separately.• An application supporting the language (e.g. Microsoft Word or Adobe PageMaker)• Language fonts• Normal English keyboard• English typing knowhow
Several transliteration software is currently present. Here are links to few of them:• Microsoft Indic Language Input tool: http://specials.msn.co.in/ilit/Hindi.aspx and http://specials.msn.co.in/ilit/HindiWebInstall.aspx• Google transliteration: http://www.google.com/transliterate/ and http://www.google.com/ime/transliteration/• iLEAP from CDAC: http://pune.cdac.in/html/gist/products/ileap.aspx• Etc.
Configuring your PCEach of the transliteration software have standard setup steps. You need to run the executable file for your PC and the software is installed.
I will provide additional information about the IME (Input Method Editor). The software from Microsoft and Google provide you an additional IME. This IME is available to you when typing in any of the standard software applications.  When typing, you can select the language from IME, then type the words as if you are writing the word in English.    
         Additional details can be gathered at http://specials.msn.co.in/ilit/GettingStarted.aspx?languageName=Hindi&redir=true&postInstall=false#WindowsXP
Now when typing, if I were to write नमस्ते, I will type “Namaste” and नमस्ते will appear. Similarly, if I have to type ਪੰਜਾਬੀ, I will type “Punjabi” and ਪੰਜਾਬੀ will appear.
So typing in any of the languages becomes a easy and joyous task. Therefore, I leave you for experimentation at this stage.
Happy transliteration!!!