Contrary to what one might think, it is very easy to use Greek Characters on your computer - if you are using the Windows Operating System - especially if you are using Windows XP. You simply need to go into the Control Panel and choose the Regional and Language Options which is the little desk globe icon (it's listed alphabetically).
After double-clicking on the icon, choose the language tab then click on the Details button on the upper right of the dialog box. The Settings tab should be the default. Click on the Add button on the right. Then choose Greek Polytonic (this gives you the diacritics as well). You can choose the Greek Latin addionally, if you are trying to represent Latin with the macrons, etc. After choosing these, close the dialog box by clicking the OK button. You will see EL Greek listed in the Installed Services list box under your default Language and keyboard layout. Under the keyboard Icon in the list, it should say Greek Polytonic and the Greek Latin if you added both.
Under Preferences, below the installed services listbox (on the same dialog box) click on the Language Bar. You can choose a number of options:
- - Show the language bar on the desktop
- Show the language bar as transparent when inactive
- Show addional language bar icons in the task bar
- Show text labels on the language bar
Click the OK button to save your settings.
Next you can assign keys to toggle between your preferred Language and keyboard settings, if you prefer.
After configuring these settings to your liking, click the OK button to save and close the Text Services and Input Languages dialog box. Click OK on the remaining dialog box to close the Regional and Language Options and you are done.
Now you will be able to type Greek with the diacritics to your hearts content.
As a demonstration of this. I will now switch from English to Greek Polytonic with the click of a button and back again after I type out the Greek alphabet as easily as the Roman Alphabet... Here goes...
- αβγδε ζηθικ λμνξο Ï€Ïστυ φχψω
- abgde zhuik lmnjo prsty fxcv
The diacritics rely on using other keys such as the [ ] \ - =. Unfortunately, these don't show up on Textkit... However, they work wonderfully in word and other applications such as email.
There is a downloadable whitepaper which outlines the steps you need to take to use Polytonic Greek from fonts to the necessary keyboard layout in more detail than I provided originally above. There is also support for Polytonic Greek in Windows 2000 - see whitepaper for step by step instructions.
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/wrg_redirect.asp?URL=polytonic
Table of Contents:
- Chapter I - Greek Polytonic System Setup
Chapter II - Installing the "Arial Unicode MS Font" in Office suites
Chapter III - Greek Polytonic Keyboard States
Chapter IV - Greek Polytonic Key Combinations
Enjoy!
Mark
