greek text on android

[vir litterarum]

Does anyone know whether it is possible to display Greek text on an android phone?

[NateD26]

This solution shows how to display Polytonic Greek in AnkiDroid app,
I do not know if that affects other apps though.

[csamels]

I don't know if this will help, but an app called Hebrew Reader for Android seems to be capable of displaying txt and html files of Polytonic Greek if the files are in utf-8 encoding. It displays with a black background and white text, but maybe that's no problem. It was a free app when I got it.

[edonnelly]

My Pharr app (Phlash Cards) handles polytonic Greek just fine:

https://market.android.com/details?id=c ... hlashcards

[Scribo]

My Pharr app (Phlash Cards) handles polytonic Greek just fine:

https://market.android.com/details?id=c ... hlashcards

That it is! I am telling η κορη, I have to get an android phone now...

[csamels]

I was speaking of a text reader, not just flashcards, so if you wanted to read book one of Herodotus in a utf-8 encoded text file, you could do that. I spoke too soon about the html in that program, because I haven't been able to open a polytonic Greek one, but the text file display works just fine. I'll check out your flashcard program.

[csamels]

I took a look at Phlash Cards. It says android 2.0 or something, and I've got lower than that. I have been using a flash card program for android called Remata. It's bare bones, but works just fine for me. I can input csv or xml card files. His program uses the Gentium font. Does Phlash Cards let you create your own card sets? Also, what are you using to read Greek texts, not just cards?

[edonnelly]

As far as Phlash Cards goes, despite its name, it's not really a flash card program. It's a study tool for people going through Pharr. It can quiz you on vocabulary for the different lessons, declensions, conjugations, etc. using the examples from the text. It also has the first book of the Iliad, with lines associated by the chapter they are covered in the book. There's nothing customizable about it.

I have never tried to read any Greek text (other than the Iliad on my app) using my phone, so I don't know what the best program to use would be, but obviously the phone can handle unicode and polytonic fonts perfectly well.

[csamels]

I WAS able to get a polytonic Greek html page to display tonight on the program, but I had to construct a simple html page to do it (in Notepad, the way I used to make my very first web pages back in the nineties) and then paste the text (from a utf-8) document into the html page. The html code was very basic, none of the stuff you see in web pages these days on web sites - no css etc, but I pasted in to that page the first sentence from Xenophon's Anabasis book 1, so I know it works. Now, as to the phones being capable of displaying polytonic Greek, I rather think it is a matter of (1) "rooting" the phone and putting in a polytonic Greek font - which is something I don't care to do, or (2) using a format that is capable of embedding the font in the document (such as the pdf Adobe page format or epub book format, both of which support embedded fonts) The drawback to that method is that each document must have an embedded font, which greatly increases the size of the files being stored. Now, there is a middle ground (3) which is including (or embedding) the font in the particular application. As I stated above, Remata included the Gentium font in the app, and this is used by it for the display. Now, in the reader app that I had, apparently there is a font in there that is capable of displaying polytonic Greek (and Hebrew, for that matter). I don't know about later versions of android, but the android I'm using doesn't have polytonic Greek in its system fonts. That's why people have been "rooting" their phones/tablets to substitute a font that will display polytonic Greek. I didn't feel like rooting my device (and possibly turning it into a brick). Using an app with an included font is the easiest way for me. The developer of the app, then, is, I guess, responsible for following the font license for whatever font he includes. I don't know how your Phlash Card app handled the matter. Whether you included a font in the app that displays polytonic Greek, or whether Google has finally come round to installing a system font that will display it.

[edonnelly]

The developer of the app, then, is, I guess, responsible for following the font license for whatever font he includes. I don't know how your Phlash Card app handled the matter.

I used New Athena Unicode, which uses the SIL open font license. It's actually not my favorite font, but the ones I like better had a more restrictive license. But it is a very good font, I think.

[csamels]

Yeah, NAU is a good font. I am hoping that Google sees the need for android tablet users to have some easier way to add fonts. I have a cheap Maylong tablet, a Cruise eReader, and a Pandigital Novel, none of which have access to the Market, and an Android 1.5 virtual phone on my PC with the android sdk, which does have access to the Market (which is why I can't get your app). None of those things are phones, but the tablets have seven inch screens, which helps my poor myopic eyesight. I don't think I could read lots of text on a regular phone, anyway, but I suppose I will just wait and get another tablet later on this year when I can get one with Market access, but now that I have something workable as far as flashcards and a text reader, I'll just stick with that. I take it that your app il pretty much like what is up on your website, so it must be pretty elaborate. Thanks for the info.

[csamels]

I installed another virtual phone and downloaded your app. Looks really good. My Cruz eReader is only Android 2.0, so I don't think it will run on that, but I can run your app on the emulator on my desktop, which is better than nothing, I suppose.

[csamels]

Also, for some reason, in your app, what should be, I suppose, right arrows appear as check marks, but that doesn't seem to stop them from working ok.

[csamels]

OK, so I FINALLY found a couple of programs that really do work for me on my android stuff. They both are sensible enough to allow the user to use fonts (get your own) stored on the sd card. So if you want to use Gentium or New Athena or whatever, great. No need to hack the device or the program or store blboated files. The first is a fairly robust flashcard program called AnyMemo. It stores the cards as a database, but you can use their converter to convert from csv files (which means you can download files from places like flashcardexchange) and xml files (which means you can convert from programs like mnemosyne) - or you can simply make your own. The other is an ereader program called iReader (version 1.0.9.5, I think - the earlier one won't do the trick), which can display txt and html files, among other formats. Again, they are both free, they both are capable of using fonts stored on the sd card, and they both are fairly full featured. On the downside, there is probably a little more learning curve to them than something as basic as Remata. Still, if I had known about these two programs months ago, I could have saed what few hairs remain on my head. (But then I wouldn't have had all the fun (?) of trying to figure out tome of this stuff.) One final remark - AnyMemo will even speak the cards for you. How's that? (Well, I can't get that feature to work on my cheapie little tablets, but it does work on my android emulator.)

[Antonios]

Too bad the 'droid isn't more hospitable to ancient greek. Also too bad that flashcard program makers can't be more up-front about what languages they support and don't (don't they have specs that tell them this stuff?) I've been through several programs so far only to find out that it wasn't the program that sucked, but the OS that won't support the characters. And very little information out there as to why this is the case. Apple has no problems with this at all, which means I'll still have to carry around my iPod for flashcard use until the android developers get it together.

BTW--I did try AnyMemo. It doesn't interface with Quizlet, but works well with FlashCardExchange. The font selection option seems to solve the diacritic problem quite nicely. The import options are a bit involved; the app's text import doesn't like the same text files I import to Quizlet, so there's an issue there. I may just have to upload everything to Flashcard Exchange and call it good. There are a lot of NT Greek Files there but not a lot of Attic or Homeric.

[edonnelly]

Too bad the 'droid isn't more hospitable to ancient greek. Also too bad that flashcard program makers can't be more up-front about what languages they support and don't (don't they have specs that tell them this stuff?) I've been through several programs so far only to find out that it wasn't the program that sucked, but the OS that won't support the characters. And very little information out there as to why this is the case. Apple has no problems with this at all, which means I'll still have to carry around my iPod for flashcard use until the android developers get it together.

How can you conclude it's an operating system issue when there are multiple reports above with Android programs using unicode and ancient Greek just fine?

[jaihare]

Download "Fontomizer" from the Android Market. It's a free app. Install it. Open it and choose the Ubuntu-TTF font. Download and install it.

Go into Settings > Display > Font Style and choose Ubuntu. It displays polytonic Greek fantastically.

Just discovered the Ubuntu font on there today. It's nice to read through the forums and see every polytonic character! It doesn't seem to support Latin macrons, though. Nothing's perfect.

[jaihare]

Just did a secondary check for support of macrons, and the Ubuntu font does support them. It all looks beautiful on my Galaxy S phone with Android 2.2.

[TrevorB]

Just did a secondary check for support of macrons, and the Ubuntu font does support them. It all looks beautiful on my Galaxy S phone with Android 2.2.

I just installed Ubuntu font as you advise on my new Galaxy mini and it works perfectly. The default font did not display the diacrits, but Ubuntu does.

Many thanks indeed

Trevor

[acguitarplayer]

Depending on what you're wanting to do with the text, the free version Logos on Android has a copy of the SBL Greek NT that displays without anything external to the app. I've been happy with that as a pocket Greek NT.

[pastorjohnperling]

Great work on this thread guys, i never would have thought that free apps with plenty of features would get some of this done for me.

[jaihare]

Depending on what you're wanting to do with the text, the free version Logos on Android has a copy of the SBL Greek NT that displays without anything external to the app. I've been happy with that as a pocket Greek NT.

Yeah, I love the SBL Greek font. I also use Logos on my Galaxy S (first generation) to read the GNT.

[edmondsr]

The Logos app also has free access to the entire Perseus library in Greek, Latin and English. Dictionary lookups, however, work relatively well for the Greek, but not so well in Latin, unfortunately. Something to build upon for later releases, I suppose...

[asecsc4]

So, how do I install the SBL font on my Samsung Android phone?

thanks
christos

[Antonios]

Too bad the 'droid isn't more hospitable to ancient greek. Also too bad that flashcard program makers can't be more up-front about what languages they support and don't (don't they have specs that tell them this stuff?) I've been through several programs so far only to find out that it wasn't the program that sucked, but the OS that won't support the characters. And very little information out there as to why this is the case. Apple has no problems with this at all, which means I'll still have to carry around my iPod for flashcard use until the android developers get it together.

How can you conclude it's an operating system issue when there are multiple reports above with Android programs using unicode and ancient Greek just fine?

I havent' really "concluded" anything of the kind, other than the fact that MY instance of the OS (a Verizon Droid Incredible 2) does not allow me to install additional fonts (like you can on a desktop OS). iOS doesn't either, but it doesn't need to--it supports it automatically!

And, in any event I "conclude" this because the the developers themselves (or at least their advisers) told me so. I submitted this as an "issue" to Google last year and here is the response I received from an advisor to their development team:

Comment #2 on issue 26037 by emmanoue...@gmail.com: Support for Polytonic Greek (and/or other languages that should be UTF-8 enabled)
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=26037

I reported the issue to the Ascender Team (1st September 2011) and both Brian Kraimer and Steve Kuhlman answered that they passed my comments to the development team. After seven months (10th April 2012), having seen no results and already moved to android 4.0, I contacted again the Ascender Team, and Steve Kuhlman answered that they did pass my comments along to the development team at Google and that it's up to up to Google to determine which languages get supported and when they role that out (The Ascender Team can only provide input). It's a shame that ancient greek language is still not supported by Google Android. Browsing pages with Greek polytonic (extended) content show the unsupported characters like boxes (if not missing completely). Trouble seems to exist with Google Drive and other document apps (such as documents to go, even though the in-app-font Arial Unicode MS supports greek extended). Multiling keyboard supports writing Greek polytonic but android system does not support viewing. Why should I have to root my device in order to read ancient greek on my device? Please update the Roboto and DroidSerif fonts with Greek extended, so that this embarrassing issue seizes to exist.

So, it's not really important whether, technically speaking, it's an "operating system" issue or not. The fact is that the "operating system" does not come loaded on at least some of our phones with the capability of displaying polytonic fonts WITHOUT having to either specify a font set (which none of the browsers allow you to do anyway) or rooting the phone. I am not going to root my phone to prove that it's not an OS issue! And yes, I can change the font on Anymemo to display polytonic greek. However, I do NOT have to do this on my iPod. If that's not an OS issue, then what is? Whether or not the OS is capable of it is really isn't very useful if you have to install special apps just to display a font.

And for the record, Fontomizer does not work on my phone. The only Fontomizer I get is some Galaxy affair. And even if is installing an ubuntu font, it's not getting me any farther in displaying diacritics on the Perseus Project pages (which display just fine under iOS.)

So, that's how I draw my conclusions. If I've overlooked something, I would be open to any constructive assistance to make this work. I would also urge anyone else who has experienced similar issues to log their concerns directly with Google. I suspect they're not doing anything about it because not enough people are telling them.

[korhoj]

I have written instructions how to install the Greek compatible, free font files from New Athena Unicode 4.05 into a Samsung Galaxy S II ICS (4.0.x) phone. See http://personal.inet.fi/koti/korhoj/android/

I don't trust Fontomizer. I cannot fathom why it requires the permission "Directly call phone numbers"?! Does it want to call some foreign number or what? The permission "Full internet access" should be enough to fetch files from Internet. At least the 05-Oct-2011 v. named Fontimizer SP(Font for Galaxy) in the Play Store asks for the aforementioned permission.

A manual procedure for replacing Android's system font with a better one:

Root your phone (see http://personal.inet.fi/koti/korhoj/android/rooting.html)
Install the fonts (see http://personal.inet.fi/koti/korhoj/android/fonts.html):
Download NAU or any TTF fonts you know to work with Greek
Rename the regular, bold, italic and bold/italic variants to Roboto-Regular.ttf, Roboto-Bold.ttf, Roboto-Italic.ttf and Roboto-BoldItalic.ttf
Copy *.ttf to any regular folder in the phone
Install Android Terminal Emulator by Jack Palevich from Google Play (or use adb)
Backup the default fonts from the phone folder /system/fonts to any regular folder
Copy the new Roboto*.ttf fonts into /system/fonts
Restart the phone

I also tried rooting the phone and uploading the ttf files with their original names into /system/fonts but FlipFont didn't detect them.

One would think there was an easier way to change fonts e.g. via an API but I haven't found one. Android API seems to protect /system as it can be also be used to other "root" things which perhaps do need to be limited somewhat.

Cheers,
Joel