special characters, áççèñòš, fonts, TABLES & GRAPHS, [and sundry computer tricks]

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1 special characters, áççèñòš, fonts, TABLES & GRAPHS, [and sundry computer tricks] Contents: 1. fonts defined 2. the nature & structure of fonts 3. characters in fonts 4. digression the use of keyboard shortcuts for accented characters 5. back to character maps 6. diacritics 7. what if i lose my character maps? 8. obtaining linguistics fonts 9. installing fonts 10. creating fonts 11. placing fonts on the toolbars 12. unicode fonts 13. some more keyboard shortcuts 14. superscripts and subscripts 15. non-breaking hyphens 16. drawing lines 17. tables and graphs 18. adobe acrobat [pdf] files 19. one more trick writing macros First a few preliminaries. 1. fonts defined: In the digital world, for the end-user, a font is file residing in a computer which specifies a set of characters [alphanumeric characters, symbols, icons, etc.] which are rendered by a program in the computer as screen characters and as characters a printer can print. These days operating systems and some programs come with fonts that an individual can use in creating documents. Fonts can also purchased or downloaded for free from the internet, and they be installed easily by the user on any sort of computer. 2. the nature & structure of fonts: There are number of kinds of fonts, but we will be concerned here only with TrueType fonts and OpenType fonts [both of which have the file extension.ttf] since these are the default fonts in Windows operating systems and are also used by Macs. [Type 1 fonts, which can also be used by PCs and Macs are, for our purposes, basically the same. Older versions of Windows required special software to use them, but Windows XP and Vista don t: we ll ignore their special properties and requirements in what follows.] For practical purposes, there are 256 [2 8 ] character slots [better: character definitions] in a font, though not all of these slots can be used for printable characters: 224 or fewer characters are ordinarily available. 1 For the usual alphanumeric fonts, the characters are provided a standard arrangement, usually referred to as the ansi [American National Standards Institute] character set. 2 This arrangement is displayed as the attached character map of the Book Antiqua typeface. 1 Potentially, there are more than 256 character definitions in a font. Unicode fonts, for example, have a great many more, potentially 65,536 characters, enough to encompass the characters for all the world s writing systems in a single font. Unicode fonts will eventually be of considerable importance for linguists and others concerned with language, and I will discuss them briefly below. 2 The ansi [pronounced ann-see ] set is a revision of the ascii [pronounced ask-ee, and standing for American Standard Code for Information Interchange] set, which defined only 128 character slots (94

2 3. characters in fonts: The character definitions in a font are accessed through a coding procedure that numbers the available slots. When you type a character on your keyboard, say an r, you give your computer an instruction to access a slot in the font. It turns out that lower case r has an access number <114>. You can access the character in two ways: by pressing the r key, or by accessing the character through directly its numerical code. To do the latter, turn on num lock [a light will go on on your keyboard], hold down the alt key, and type on the numeric keyboard [the number characters on the righthand side of the keyboard] the sequence The character r will appear on the screen. The trick you learned in the last paragraph may not be of much use in accessing characters you can easily type on the keyboard, but it is useful in accessing characters in the font that have no simple keyboard access. So, if you want to type the section character, probably the easiest way to do so is simply to type its access number, 0167, using the procedure described above. [Note that all access numbers begin with 0.] If you examine the character map for Book Antiqua, you ll see that the characters which can be typed easily on the keyboard have numbers below 0127; the other characters, often referred to as the extended character set, have number 0128 and above. 4. digression the use of keyboard shortcuts for accented characters: Major word-processors have keyboard shortcuts that allow you to type common accented characters without resorting to typing their ansi access numbers. In MS Word, you can type common accented characters with the following keyboard shortcuts: acute accent: hold down the ctrl key and type the apostrophe, then type the character you want accented, e.g. á, é, í, ó, ú, ý. grave accent: hold down the ctrl key and type the grave accent key, then type the character you want accented, e.g. à, è, ì, ò, ù. circumflex accent: hold down the ctrl and shift keys together and type the caret ^ key, then type the character you want accented, e.g. â, ê, î, ô, û. tilde accent: hold down the ctrl and shift keys together and type the tilde, then type the character you want accented, e.g. ã, õ. umlauted characters: hold down the ctrl and shift keys together and type the colon key, then type the character you want accented, e.g. ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ÿ. ç: hold down the ctrl key and type a comma, then type c or C. ñ: hold down the ctrl and shift keys together and type the tilde, then type n or N. Other shortcuts are available [and may be differently done] if you choose to use a different language for Windows in Windows Setup. actual characters), equivalent to the character set visible [and without special tricks, typable] on the standard computer keyboard. 2

3 5. back to character maps: Character maps are necessary when dealing with symbol fonts which are not arranged in a standard order. Symbol fonts include analphabetic fonts like Wingdings, which have iconic and other special characters [known as sorts ] like,, and, technical-scientific character fonts, non-roman alphabetic fonts, etc. In this category, then, are two classes of fonts of interest to linguists: phonetics fonts and non-roman fonts. Attached to this handout are character maps for two phonetics fonts and a Devanagari font [which can be used for writing Sanskrit, Hindi, and Nepali]. As the character maps show, a number of the characters can be accessed directly from the keyboard, while other characters, placed in the extended character set slots, must be accessed with the alt key and the access number, which must be typed on the numeric keypad, which, on desktop computers, is located on the righthand side of the keyboard. 3 So, in the Times Linguist font, to type /w¹ ¼/, one would type the / and the w using the keyboard characters, but the remaining characters would have to be typed using the relevant access code numbers: 0185 for <¹>, 0161 for < >, etc. Fonts can be combined within the same page and indeed within the same word. So, one could type /s mf ni/ with characters from the Times Linguist font, with the addition of <m> from the Times Linguist 2 font diacritics: We saw earlier that accented characters, i.e. characters with diacritics, could be accessed in the ansi character set with shortcut keys or by using their access code number. It turns out, however, that the characters with diacritics in alphanumeric fonts like Book Antiqua are ready made, i.e. the character definition includes the character and its diacritic. But what if you need a diacritic on a character that isn t included in the ansi character set? In the Times Linguist and Times Linguist 2 fonts, some characters are provided with ready-made diacritics. Both fonts, however, have diacritics that can be attached to any character. These diacritic characters are provided with negative space definitions which allow them to be place over or under another character. So, suppose you want to type a voiceless <a>: [a»]. You can do this by typing <a> in the Times Linguist font, switching to the Times Linguist 2 font and then typing alt , the code for the diacritic indicating voicelessness. 3 On most laptop computers, the numeric keypad is located within the regular alpha-numeric keys, under the right hand in the standard typing position. On certain keys, you ll see numbers in addition to the usual letters: that s the numeric keypad on a laptop. To activate the numeric keypad, press num lock: the relevant keys will no longer type letters, but only numbers. You can then use this numeric keypad like the one on a standard keybaord. Press num lock again to resume typing standard text. [Some newer laptops have a function key [Fn], which when pressed with the Alt key activates the numeric keypad.] 4 In using symbol fonts like Times Linguist, be sure to turn off macros that automatically replace one character [or sequence of characters] with another. In Word, for example, AutoCorrect will replace straight quotes with smart quotes. This feature is fine when you use an alphanumeric font like Book Antiqua, but produces odd results with symbol fonts like Times Linguist. So, with that AutoCorrect feature on, when you type < ½n st > you ll get < ½n st > instead, since the characters < > and < > are found in the same slots [0145] and [0146] as the curled apostrophes which the AutoCorrect feature tries to insert. 3

4 In the Times Linguist typeface [but not Times Linguist 2] each diacritic has three alternate versions together with a ready-made version for <i>. The alternates differ in how far to the left the diacritic is placed, allowing proper placement of the diacritic over characters of different widths. So, for example, the vowel character <»> is wider than < >, which, in turn, is wider than < >. The widest characters should be used with the version of the diacritic furthest to the left, the narrowest the version furthest to the right. So, if the ha ek character is placed over these vowels to indicate rising tone, 0239 should be placed over the widest characters, <»ï>, 0240 over those of middle width, < ð>, and 0241 over the narrowest: < ñ>. If one were to place 0239 over the last, it would look like < ï>, with the accent too far to the left. If you don t want to bother with the typographic niceties, use the middle accent within each trio. 7. what if i lose my character maps? All is not lost if you lose your character maps or don t have them with you when you re working on a document. The various versions of Windows come equipped with a handy utility called, appropriately, Character Map. You can access the Windows Character Map by clicking start, then programs, then accessories. Depending on the version of Windows you re using, character map will either be one of the options under accessories or it will be an option under system tools, which itself is found under accessories. Character Map can be used to locate characters in any font installed on your computer: click and hold on a character and the character will appear in a larger size and its access number will appear in the lower right side of the window. The problem with this applet is that the characters are displayed in a tiny size that s hard to read. Nonetheless, it s quite useful and once loaded can be minimized and used as needed as you work. 5 Recall however that Acrobat versions of the character maps for the Times Linguist and Times Linguist 2 typefaces can be downloaded from this course s webpage and from the Himalayan Linguistics website. A character map for Book Antiqua, a standard alphanumeric typeface, can be downloaded from the webpage of this course. 8. obtaining linguistics fonts: The Times Linguist and Times Linguist 2 fonts can be downloaded for free from my website [most course pages] and from the Himalayan Linguistics website. There are many other sites where you can download useful linguistics and non-roman fonts. Two such sites are: You can use Character Map to copy characters from fonts that you can then paste into documents. The paste command, discussed in more detail below, is ctrl + v. In MSWord, you can also access a character map by clicking insert on the toolbar, and then symbol. This is very convenient if you want to insert the odd special character, but is less convenient than Character Map because the window can t be minimized, staying on the screen until you press cancel. In the latest versions of Word, you can, however, resize the window and drag it around the screen, thus getting it out of the way so that you can see where on the page characters are inserted, making this applet much more useful. 4

5 9. installing fonts: For PCs, in all current versions of Windows, do the following: Go to start Click settings, then control panel On the control panel screen click fonts When the fonts screen loads, click file and scroll down to install new fonts. At the add fonts screen you will need to direct the program to the location on your hard drive or floppy where you have stored the fonts. 10. creating fonts: It s possible to custom-design fonts either by lifting characters from preëxisting fonts or by designing characters from scratch with standard highend graphics programs like CorelDraw or with specialized font-creation software like Fontographer. Needless to say, the procedure is much simpler with dedicated fontcreation software. The Department has a license for Fontographer, and, if anyone s interested, I can give a demonstration on how the program works. [Also, if you want font creation software, I can give you a copy of FontMonger, a nice albeit older program that is no longer supported or updated by its owner. FontMonger will work in Windows 95 and in Windows XP, but not in Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows Vista.] 11. placing fonts on the toolbars: If you switch back and forth between fonts frequently, it s useful to place fonts on the MS Word toolbars so that you can access them more easily. The procedure for doing this is quite simple: click tools, customize..., then commands. Under categories, scroll down and click fonts. Scroll down through the list of fonts and click and hold on the font you d like on your toolbar: drag the cursor to an empty space on a toolbar and release. You can now activate the font by clicking its name on the toolbar. 12. unicode fonts Unicode fonts are the future, and all of us will be using them for linguistics and multilingual texts. In the short term, however, they are not terribly convenient to use though they can still be quite useful. Unicode fonts are the product of the Unicode Consortium, a non-profit organization set up solely to produce the organizational standard for digital fonts that incorporate characters for all the world s writing systems. A single Unicode font, therefore, would enable one to mix English, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and more on single page, all from a single font. Fonts that incorporate the full Unicode standard are available and are distributed free with Macs and with PCs with MS Office XP and Microsoft Publisher For a time, Microsoft distributed Arial Unicode with all versions of Windows, but it has ceased doing so, though the font is available for purchase. The following website 5

6 contains a downloadable, free Unicode font for phonetics. The website below lists a number of free, shareware, or commercial IPA Unicode fonts: One can access characters in a Unicode font in several ways. The keyboard characters and even the characters found in the extended character set can be accessed in the usual way. For example, an <æ> can be accessed by holding down alt and typing 0230 on the numeric keyboard, just as with a traditional text font. The full range of extra characters require a different sort of access. The simplest way to see what s available in a Unicode font in MSWord is to click insert on the tool bar, then symbol. Select Arial Unicode [or Lucida Sans Unicode or another Unicode font such as the latest version of Times Roman] and the full list of characters in the font will appear on your screen. You can scroll down to the character you want and then insert it. The process of finding the character you want out of the thousands of characters in the font is made a bit easier with the menu bar on the upper right of the screen, reproduced above. If you re looking for an IPA character, a combining diacritic, or any other specialized character, you can use this menu to help you find it. Needless to say, this is slow; further, the Insert Symbol window can t be minimized or made to stay open, slowing down the process even further. An alternative is to use Windows Character Map, which, in Windows XP, you can access by clicking the start button, them programs, then accessories, then system tools, then character map. Once you are in Windows Character Map, load a unicode font and scroll down the screen to see the full range of characters. This applet can be minimized, but it isn t as smart as Insert Symbol, which is sensitive to font size, italics, bold, etc. If you need to use the special characters in a Unicode font often, then you ll need another way to access the characters. One way is to remap your keyboard, which Windows will allow you to do so that every time you type, a schwa will appear. 6 If you have Windows XP or Vista, you can also type out the numeric code, referred to as 6 I won t describe here how this is done, though the not-always-helpful MSWord help menu can tell you how to customize keyboard layouts. It s also possible to write macros for inserting special characters. See 19 for discussion of macros. 6

7 the hex number associated with the character: you type, either on the numeric keypad or the regular keyboard, 0259, then hold down alt while typing x, and a schwa will appear in place of the code. You can locate the hex number again, only in XP or Vista by clicking on the character in the Insert Symbol window or in Windows Character Map. [The graphic on the last page shows the location of the hex number for schwa.] At the end of this handout, I ve appended a chart with hex codes for IPA characters. 7 [Thanks to Byron Thigpen, who created that chart.] If you think you ll need to make a lot of use of Unicode fonts, go to either of the following websites where you can find a number of utilities that will help you insert characters in text. You can also try Östen Dahl s Uniqoder utility [though I m not sure if this works in Vista]. The URL is: Unicode is very useful in HTML, and a number of these utilities are designed for webpage designers. For the computer savvy or the very brave, Bruce Hayes has made available a version of the normal.dot file he uses in his PC; this contains a number of shortcuts [macros: see 18] for typing phonetic characters. on this page he lists the shortcuts thus obtained. [Note: you can do this for yourself. See 18.] If you don t want to get too elaborate, a handy utility, IPA Character Pick, allows you to click on the characters you need and then copy them into your manuscript. The URL is: Inserting unicode characters is easier on a Mac, but I m restricting my comments here to PCs. 13. some more keyboard shortcuts: Below are some shortcuts that are useful in working with text or graphics. For some reason, these shortcuts seem not to be very well known. selecting text: parts of a document [text, graphics, tables, etc.] can be selected [and then maniputated in various ways] by holding down the left mouse key and dragging the mouse over the appropriate parts of the document. An entire text, including graphics, can be selected by holding down the control key and pressing a : ctrl + a. 7 For the truly technologically challenged, there is a very simple workaround for accessing a few Unicode characters that you ll need often. Open a new document, and then using either the Insert Symbol or Windows Character Map applets, make a single copy of all the characters you think you ll need in the document. Save the document in a directory that will make it easy to find when you need it. When you need the special characters, open that document along with the document you re working on and paste the appropriate character from the character file to the file you re working on. For coping and pasting shortcuts, see 13. 7

8 copying parts of a document: text or graphics can be copied by first selecting them, then using the ctrl + c command. pasting parts of a document that have been copied: once parts of a document have been copied, they can be pasted [as often as you want until you copy something else] anywhere in the same document or in a different document by using the ctrl + v command. Copying and pasting can also be accomplished with the mouse by selecting the appropriate text as above, then clicking edit then copy or paste on the toolbar. 14. superscripts and subscripts: Superscript and subscript characters, which have many uses in linguistics, are very easy to produce in Word. Some examples follow: Clyde i told Rollo j that he j drank his i beer. Roots in Lango have the form C 1 VC 2. [p h ɑk h ət] χ 2 = To write superscript and subscript characters, click on format on the toolbar, then font, then check the box for either superscript or subscript characters, and then click on ok. 15. non-breaking hyphens: One problem linguists encounter in writing papers has to do with typing suffixes, which are always preceded by a hyphen, e.g. -ing. When Word justifies lines containing forms like -ing, it may leave the hyphen on one line and move the remainder of the suffix to the next, leaving you with a line ending in - alone and the following line beginning with ing. The conditions for this happening do not permit this problem to happen often, but in the course of a long paper, it is likely to happen more than once and can be quite annoying. The problem is that when Word sees a hyphen, it assumes that there must be something before it, as in a name like Mary-Lou: after all, only linguists write words beginning with hyphens. So, what to do? Fortunately, there s a simple trick. It turns out you can use a non-breaking hyphen in MSWord. Instead of just pressing the hyphen key, press ctrlshift-hyphen instead. This will force Word to keep the hyphenated word together, rather than breaking it to justify the paragraph. 16. drawing lines: There are many occasions when linguists need to draw lines in a text document. One such occasion is in presenting syntactic tree diagrams such as the one below: 8

9 S NP VP N VC NP V N Rollo detests quiche Producing such diagrams is a fairly simple procedure: in MS Word, click on the graphics icon on the standard toolbar [or, under view, go to toolbars and click drawing]. On the drawing toolbar that will appear there is an icon of a simple line: click on this icon, then click and hold on the spot where you want the line to begin, drag the mouse to indicate the direction of the line, then release the mouse button where you want the line to end. If you d like lines of different weights, double lines, dotted lines, lines with arrows, etc, there are icons on the toolbar that allow you to modify a line once it s drawn. If you select a line by clicking on it, you can modify it or move it with the arrow keys on the keyboard. 17. tables and graphs: Tables can be hand drawn using the line drawing tool discussed above, or they can be created with the tables tool. For the latter, either click on the tables icon on the standard toolbar, or click table and then insert table, specifying the number of rows and columns in the table you want to create. When you create a table using either of these tools [i.e. the tables icon or clicking table], you can convert the table to a graph very easily. So, for example, the simple table can be converted to a graph by selecting the table, then clicking insert, then picture, then chart. When the graph window appears, specify the values for the two axes. 9

10 Rollo Boris Zebulon plinths zarfs klingons A graph can also be created without a preëxisting table by following the same procedure [click insert, then picture, then chart] and inputting the values for each cell. 18. adobe acrobat [pdf] files: All of you should have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computers. You can download a free copy by clicking the Adobe icon on this course s webpage. The Acrobat Reader will allow you to read and print Acrobat pdf files, but it will not allow you to create them. 8 There are lots of reasons why you might want to create an Acrobat pdf file. Acrobat files can be read by computers using any of the major operating systems. And and this is important for linguists you can embed fonts in a pdf file so that someone who lacks the fonts used in creating the file can read the file as you intended it to be read. This means that non-roman language fonts [but not Chinese characters, however] and linguistics fonts can be embedded in your documents and read by anyone who has the free Acrobat Reader even when the fonts are not installed on their computers. Adobe Acrobat Distiller, the program that allows you to create pdf files, is a bit expensive. 9 The English Department has several copies floating around and if the occasion arises when you need to create an Acrobat file, you can use of the Department s copies to create one. Note that when you create a pdf file using Acrobat Distiller, you must have all the fonts you ll need installed on the computer that is creating the document; otherwise, the fonts can t be embedded in the document. [At the time of writing [9/1/07], anyone can sign up for a free trial of Adobe Acrobat, which allows you to create five Acrobat documents for free. The URL is: I haven t tried this so I don t know if you can also embed fonts with this free service.] 19. one more trick writing macros: A macro [not the name of a breakfast cereal] is a mini-program that automates some tasks. The tasks can be very complicated or 8 Be sure to download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat since older versions can t read some new Acrobat files and lack other features. 9 There are some cheaper commercial programs which will also create pdf files, and others which will allow you to convert pdf files into doc files [which Acrobat Distiller won t do]. I haven t tried any of these programs and don t know how successfully they embed or preserve fonts. 10

11 very simple, but it s usually worth writing a macro only for things that are somehow complicated to do: either because they are long or because they require awkward keystrokes. For example, if you work on a laptop and have to access frequently the characters in the extended character set of a font like Times Linguist the awkwardness of the process can be annoying. [You have to keep turning num lock on and off since the numeric keypad is not separate from the ordinary character keys.] You can write simple macros that make accessing characters easy. Here s how it works. Suppose you want to simplify the typing of a schwa in Times Linguist. In MS Word, click tools, macros, then record new macro. Give the macro a name [we ll call this one schwa ], and determine whether you want the macro to be accessible from an icon on the toolbar or through the keyboard. We ll select the keyboard for our example. In the window that appears, select a keyboard shortcut: I ll choose alt + e, as this combination is unassigned. I ll type in that shortcut, click assign, then close. The Macro Recorder will now record every keystroke I make until I turn the recorder off. To get the schwa [and let s assume you ll already be using Times Linguist when you need it], turn on num lock and press alt , the access code for the schwa. Now, go back to tools, macros, and click stop recording macro. Now, whenever you press alt + e, you ll access slot 0182 and if you re in Times Linguist, you ll have a schwa. Michael Noonan noonan@uwm.edu 11

12 Bilabial LabDental Dental Alveolar P-Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal Plosive Nasal Trill Tap Fric Lat Fric Apprx LApprx p t ʈ 0288 c k q ʔ 0294 b d ɖ 0256 Ɉ 0248 ɡ 0261 ɢ 0262 m ɱ 0271 n ɳ 0273 ɲ 0272 ŋ 014B ɴ 0274 ʙ 0299 r ʀ 0280 ɾ 027E ɸ 0278 f θ 03B8 s ʃ 0283 ʂ 0282 ҫ 04AB x χ 03C7 ħ 0127 h β 03B2 v ð 00F0 z ʒ 0292 ʐ 0290 ʝ 029D ɣ 0263 ʁ 0281 ʕ 0295 ɦ 0266 ɬ 026C ɮ 026E ʋ 028B ɹ 0279 ɻ 027B j ɰ 0270 l ɭ 026D ʎ 028E ʟ 029F i y ʉ 0289 e ɪ 026A ø 00F8 ɛ 025B ʏ 028F œ 0153 ɨ 0268 ɘ 0258 ɜ 025C ɵ 0275 ə 0259 ʊ 028A ɞ 025E ɯ 026F ɤ 0264 ʌ 028C u o ɔ 0254 ʧ 02A7 ʤ 02A4 Affricate ʦ 02A6 ʣ 02A3 ʍ 028D w ɥ 0265 ʜ 029C ʢ 02A2 Clicks Voiced Implosives Ejectives ʘ 0298 Bilabial ǀ 01C0 Dental! Post alveolar ǂ 01C2 ǁ 01C1 Palatoalveolar Alveolar Lateral Voiceless labial-velar fricative Voiced labial-velar approximant Voiced labial-palatal approximant Voiceless epiglottal fricative Voiced epiglottal fricative ɓ 0253 Bilabial ʾ 02BE Examples ɗ 0257 Dental/Alveolar pʾ Bilabial ʄ 0284 Palatal tʾ Dental/Alveolar ɠ 0260 Velar kʾ Velar ʛ 029B Uvular sʾ Alveolar fric ɕ 0255 ʑ 0291 ɺ 027A ɧ 0267 Alveolo-palatal fricatives Alveolar lateral flap Simultaneous ʃ and x æ 00E6 a ɶ 0276 ɐ 0250 ɑ ɒ For special characters, type the four digit number followed by Alt+X. After typing Alt + X the four digit number will change into the special character Voiceless n 0308 Centralized e ʲ 02B2 Palatalized tʲ ˬ 032C Voiced t 0307 Mid-centrlzd e ˠ 02E0 Velarized tˠ ʰ 02B0 Aspirated tʰ 0329 Syllabic n 032A Dental t 0339 More rounded ɔ 032F Non-syllabic e 033A Apical t 031C less rounded ɔ 0324 Breathy voiced b 033B Laminal t 031F Advanced u 0330 Creaky voiced b ɫ 026B Velarized ɫ 0320 Retracted e ʷ 02B7 Labialized tʷ 0303 Nasalized e