Representing Greek Characters

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Brendan
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Representing Greek Characters

Post by Brendan »

Hi everybody,

I'm kind of confused as to how I should read/write Greek characters on this forum. I downloaded SPIonic, based on the info in the "sticky" post at the top of this page, but stuff still looks wrong. Some posts are readable, others aren't.

Part of the problem may be that I don't understand the difference between "Betacode" and "Unicode". Googling those terms has only confused me further--could anybody help me out?

Really, my only question is this: I have a Mac (OS 10.2) and would like to read and write Greek characters on this site--what do I need to do? Sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find any answers.

Thank you!

Adelheid
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Post by Adelheid »

Hi Brendan,

SPIonic is no longer used to write Greek on these forums.

I use the keyboard layout Sophokeys and any unicode font to be able to write Greek on this site and to be able to read it too.

Unicode fonts are Lucida Grande and Verdana for example. They will be present on your mac by default.

Sophokeys converts betacode input to polytonic Greek (unicode) output. On the site of Sophokeys there is a link to a site where the use of betacode is explained.
Regards,
Adelheid
http://www.perispomenon.nl

Kopio
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Post by Kopio »

I just installed sophokeys...it went pretty smoothly and now I can type in Greeκ. Pretty slick.

Adelheid
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Post by Adelheid »

Kopio wrote:I just installed sophokeys...it went pretty smoothly and now I can type in Greeκ. Pretty slick.
Is that a kappa that I see in the word Greek ;-) instead of the regular 'k'?
Regards,
Adelheid
http://www.perispomenon.nl

Brendan
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Post by Brendan »

Great! Thanks for your help, Adelheid.

edonnelly
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Post by edonnelly »

During the "SPIonic days," we were told:
annis wrote:Finally, on many people's computers all the accents and breathings look pretty messy in the default font size. So, it's more typing, but it's friendly to increase the size of your greek if you're doing a lot of it.
Is there something equivalent to do in unicode to make the Greek larger? Since the switch, the Greek has shrunk down quite a bit. (I use Firefox and can easily increase all of the text, but I did like having the Greek larger so I could see the extra marks without making the regular text too large). Just curious.
The lists:
G'Oogle and the Internet Pharrchive - 1100 or so free Latin and Greek books.
DownLOEBables - Free books from the Loeb Classical Library

Adelheid
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Post by Adelheid »

Isn't 'Font size' (applied to the selected Greek text) what you are looking for? When you post a reply, there is a drop down menu to the right of 'Font size:' with a choice between Normal, Large, Huge etc.
Regards,
Adelheid
http://www.perispomenon.nl

edonnelly
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Post by edonnelly »

Adelheid wrote:Isn't 'Font size' (applied to the selected Greek text) what you are looking for? When you post a reply, there is a drop down menu to the right of 'Font size:' with a choice between Normal, Large, Huge etc.
Ah, yes, that will do it. Thank you.

But that only works if the person posting the Greek uses it. So I guess my other question is: Does textkit still consider it "friendly" to bump up the size of posted Greek text, or was that policy just related to SPIonic?

I guess it seems rather trivial, but most posters actually did do this with SPIonic, but I'm not sure if I've seen it done at all since the switch to unicode.
The lists:
G'Oogle and the Internet Pharrchive - 1100 or so free Latin and Greek books.
DownLOEBables - Free books from the Loeb Classical Library

Adelheid
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Post by Adelheid »

edonnelly wrote:I guess my other question is: Does textkit still consider it "friendly" to bump up the size of posted Greek text, or was that policy just related to SPIonic?
I would go for larger font size for unicode Greek as well.
Regards,
Adelheid
http://www.perispomenon.nl

Bert
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Post by Bert »

edonnelly wrote: So I guess my other question is: Does textkit still consider it "friendly" to bump up the size of posted Greek text, or was that policy just related to SPIonic?
I usually do it but not always when I am refering to what I quoted already in the post.
I am not sure if textkit considers it friendly but this textkitten does.

AABaker
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Post by AABaker »

Same question as the original post but for a PC:

From my PC (Windows XP), how can I read and write Greek on this site? The sticky post in the learning Greek thread pointed to the system font (I only have "Greek") but others are posting with other fonts that allow accents and such.

edonnelly
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Post by edonnelly »

AABaker wrote:Same question as the original post but for a PC:

From my PC (Windows XP), how can I read and write Greek on this site? The sticky post in the learning Greek thread pointed to the system font (I only have "Greek") but others are posting with other fonts that allow accents and such.
For fonts, a good place to go is:

http://www.russellcottrell.com/greek/fonts.asp

There are a ton to choose from, and I believe they are all free. Since they are all unicode (the same coding system used here) any should be able to work on this board (unlike the old Spionic days here, where you pretty much had to have that particular font).

For composing greek characters on your computer, try this site:

http://members.aol.com/AtticGreek/

It links to the old but free version of keyman, a program I really like for writing Greek. I think a lot of people here use it -- I certainly learned about it from others at textkit.
The lists:
G'Oogle and the Internet Pharrchive - 1100 or so free Latin and Greek books.
DownLOEBables - Free books from the Loeb Classical Library

AABaker
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Posts: 53
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2006 4:33 am

Post by AABaker »

Thanks. I am unable to type accents with the program however.

AABaker
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Posts: 53
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2006 4:33 am

Post by AABaker »

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~tayl0010/letters ... etpos2.htm

This website has a way to type in the text and use their program to fill in the accents. I am using that to post on the forums, since none of the other ways seem to be working for me that have thus far been posted.

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