how do you write unicode?

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chad
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how do you write unicode?

Post by chad »

hi all, i've got a quick font question, and unfortunately the answer can't be spionic. basically i can't install anything on my pc: not fonts, applications, anything. i've got windows xp prof, ie 6, word 97 and outlook 2002: i can't upgrade anything...

if i open up greek in perseus and set it to 'unicode with pre-combined accents' i see a mass of boxes over the pre-combined characters but the rest are fine. then if i paste that mess into outlook (i.e. a task) it comes out fine in tahoma (i have no idea whether that's 'unicode' or not)

can any of you high-tech people out there please take a guess as to the best/easiest way for me to write greek in these circumstances (apart from betacode), thanks! chad. :)

bingley
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Post by bingley »

If it comes to that, is there any way of knowing whether the software on any particular computer is unicode-enabled or not without actually downloading something and seeing what happens?

Skylax
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Post by Skylax »

I have downloaded a software called Antioch. You have to pay to receive the full sofware but the free downloadable part is useful. You can get Antioch 2 from the site :

http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~hancock/antioch2.htm

The font used is Vusillus Old Face that is included in the downloadable package.

Good luck.

Geoff
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Post by Geoff »

XP Pro and IE 6 are good for unicode, but word 97 is likely not to support unicode. The Reason it will not display in Perseus is probably just a settings problem. Try working carefully through the instructions concerning fonts and if it still doesn't work, try a few different things.

Perhaps if you tell us you cannot upgrade we could be more help. I suspect that the fonts suggested for viewing unicode on perseus are on your machine old versions due to word 97. I have a comp. with Windows 2000 and it's wordpad is unicode ready.

Try Keyman from Tavultsoft. -http://www.tavultesoft.com/

Read this also - http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/unicode.htm

Paul
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Re: how do you write unicode?

Post by Paul »

chad wrote:hi all, i've got a quick font question, and unfortunately the answer can't be spionic. basically i can't install anything on my pc: not fonts, applications, anything. i've got windows xp prof, ie 6, word 97 and outlook 2002: i can't upgrade anything...

if i open up greek in perseus and set it to 'unicode with pre-combined accents' i see a mass of boxes over the pre-combined characters but the rest are fine. then if i paste that mess into outlook (i.e. a task) it comes out fine in tahoma (i have no idea whether that's 'unicode' or not)
Hi Chad,

Hmm...can't install anything, huh? That's a tall order. If you're constrained to your PC's current configuration, please look around on it for fonts fonts 'arial unicode ms' or 'palatino linotype'. I think that the former was packaged with Office 97.

If you have either of these, please enable it in IE by Tools > Internet Options > Fonts, select the font from the left-hand select list 'Web page font'.

Then try Perseus again and let me know the results.

Cordially,

Paul

Paul
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Post by Paul »

bingley wrote:If it comes to that, is there any way of knowing whether the software on any particular computer is unicode-enabled or not without actually downloading something and seeing what happens?
Hi Bingley,

Quite understandably there is much confusion about the meaning of 'unicode-enabled'. It helps to think of the term 'character' as meaning a numeric value. For the appearance of that value, use the word 'glyph'.

I suspect that for most of us it means something like 'will I be able to see the proper glyphs?'. There is also the secondary question 'if I enter Unicode characters into an application will they be properly handled by the application?'.

The first question is largely determined by the fonts you have on your system. A 'unicode font' is one that 'knows' what glyph to display for every character in the unicode character set. With such a font you will not see the 'box character'. When I look at unicode greek on Perseus I don't see any boxes. This is because I have told my web browser to use a unicode font. Both 'arial unicode ms' and 'palatino linotype' are unicode fonts.

BTW: the 'box character' is a sure sign that the font you're using is not able to relate a certain character to its glyph.

The second question is harder because it depends more on the application. Programs like Keyman, Unipad, etc. allow you to generate unicode characters. But some applications mangle these data.

If this is at all unclear, please fire back and I will try to explain further.

Cordially,

Paul

chad
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Post by chad »

thanks so much paul! i changed the font settings in ie6 and it worked! since 99% of my greek is done in coffee breaks (hence also my rushed no-caps no-punctuation posts here at textkit) i've been staring at boxes on perseus far too much: this will really make a difference. i'll deal with the writing in unicode later: at least all this recent handwriting practice in my OCTs at home will make me a bit neater. thanks again :)

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