Greek font without shifting to polytonic?

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Franmorar
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Location: Christophoropolis in Venetiola

Greek font without shifting to polytonic?

Post by Franmorar »

Χαίρετε, ὦ διαδικτυικοὶ φίλοι
Salvete, interretiales amici

Perhaps this is a question so many times asked in the Forum, but I'd like to know... is there a free Greek font, on-line downloadable, that can be used without shifting to polytonic keyboard? i. e., only shifting the font option in the upper tool bar in text processors.
I have downloaded SPIonic but it is not so "pretty" in lower case, and the position of accents and breaths are really "counter-intuitive". Other fonts as "Griego" from a web site of a Spanish philosophical society look beautiful on screen and print, but look as well a little too "cursive" and thin.
So then, could anybody help?
Thank you in advance.
Hominibus totam versandam constat esse bibliothecam, ut solam utilem scribere sententiam possint.

jk0592
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Joined: Sun Oct 08, 2006 3:20 am
Location: Montreal, Canada

Re: Greek font without shifting to polytonic?

Post by jk0592 »

Try the some of the fonts at http://www.greekfontsociety.gr/index.html . But you will still have to shif to polytonic...it is not a major problem ?
Jean K.

spiphany
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Re: Greek font without shifting to polytonic?

Post by spiphany »

I think maybe what you want is a different keyboard layout, not a new font?

There are a couple of programs you can download which allow you to input Greek text using betacode (I use Tavultesoft Keyman, but there are a couple of others). Or you can create a custom keyboard to replace the standard polytonic one. In both cases you will still need to change the setting on the language bar when you want to switch from Greek to English, but this is surely not more difficult than switching the font setting?

You might try one of these sites: (I think there's another free app which doesn't use Keyman but I can't find it right now.)
http://freenet-homepage.de/LukasPietsch ... oards.html
http://scholarsfonts.net/keybrds.html

If you're a mac user look into SophoKeys.

I would recommend using this method rather than a special Greek font like SPIonic, since texts typed in (eg) SPIonic look like gibberish in any font except SPIonic. If you use unicode input (as with the polytonic keyboard), the Greek characters will always display properly, providing the font you're using has unicode support.
IPHIGENIE: Kann uns zum Vaterland die Fremde werden?
ARKAS: Und dir ist fremd das Vaterland geworden.
IPHIGENIE: Das ist's, warum mein blutend Herz nicht heilt.
(Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris)

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