How do you get display the Cherokee font?

Go to system prefs/language & text/input sources and check the box for a Cherokee keyboard, plus the box for Show Input Menu in Finder. Then select the Cherokee keyboard from the "flag" menu at the top right of the Finder, turn on Caps Lock, and type. Use Keyboard Viewer to see which key does what.

You can also input Cherokee from the Character Viewer, View = Code Tables, Tab = Unicode, 000013A0 Cherokee.

Macs can display any language, but not every font is included. For example, I sometimes visit Georgian web pages, but I had to install a whole host of Georgian fonts to get them to look right. In the case of Cherokee, a quick Google search turned up this page:

http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/CherokeeFont/Downloads.aspx

Add the Mac OS X Cherokee font, restart the program you want to use, and you should be all set. It worked without a hitch for me. One quirk: you'll want to use the Mac OS X version they supply as a .zip file: the .sit file they also provide is much older, for use with Mac OS 9-based computers.

Macs can display any language, but not every font is included.

Cherokee fonts and keyboard layouts are in fact included in OS X for many years already. The font is called Plantagenet Cherokee. So there is no need to download anything to get started.

That's fantastic! Unicode is a great thing.

But as I discovered when trying to display Georgian web pages, many content creators don't choose the most universal font or the proper encoding when building their sites. For example, the Cherokee web page to which I linked -- the official page for the Cherokee nation -- wouldn't work properly unless I downloaded the specific typeface they recommended:

http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/Font/syllabarytest.htm

Just trying to use my experience to be helpful!

many content creators don't choose the most universal font or the proper encoding when building their sites. For example, the Cherokee web page to which I linked -- the official page for the Cherokee nation -- wouldn't work properly unless I downloaded the specific typeface they recommended:

http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/Font/syllabarytest.htm

Thanks! I would never have guessed that the official nation site still uses non-unicode fonts like that.