How to enter Unicode font in a Word document

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Level 1

59 points

How to enter Unicode font in a Word document

I am trying to input non-English symbols/characters into a document. A colleague who uses Windows wrote that in Word, you input a character by using their Unicode number, highlighting it, and doing Alt-X. For example, enter 025A, highlight it, and you get the IPA symbol for the r-coloured schwa as in fathER. On my Mac keyboard (US), Alt/Option-X does not do the trick. Is there another keystroke sequence that works?

PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.2), 512 MB DDR SDRAM M

Posted on Mar 21, 2008 6:47 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,196 points

Mar 22, 2008 3:51 PM in response to Marsha Chan

PS If there are a limited number of IPA characters you need on a regular basis, it would be only a few minutes work to create a custom layout where you would be able to access them via the Option/Alt keys. The tool used for this is Ukelele:

http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?siteid=nrsi&itemid=ukelele

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Answer 2

Mar 21, 2008 6:56 PM in response to Marsha Chan

Do you have the German keyboard active? Look in International Preferences (System Preferences) and in the Input menu there is a list of languages. Select the German )if that is what you want. If your keyboard does not have the characters on the keys, in that same panel, select the Keyboard viewer.

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Answer 3

Marsha Chan Author

Level 1

59 points

Mar 21, 2008 8:00 PM in response to Graham K. Rogers

I have US English keyboard. I found the symbols that I need /ɚ/ and /ɝ/ and can enter them from the Character palette. However, I was trying to find the Mac equivalent of the Windows keystroke ALT-X to change a Unicode number into the desired symbol.

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Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,196 points

Mar 21, 2008 8:10 PM in response to Marsha Chan

I was trying to find the Mac equivalent of the Windows keystroke ALT-X to change a Unicode number into the desired symbol.

Mac's don't do that. Unless you go to system prefs/international/input menu and check the box for Unicode Hex Input and then select that in the "flag" menu at the top right of the finder. Then you can type any Unicode character via Option/Alt + its hex code.

Accented characters can be typed with Option/Alt shortcuts. Here is a chart:

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/diacritics.html

PS If you type a lot of IPA, then this note may be useful:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2007/01/typing-in-international-phonetic.html

Message was edited by: Tom Gewecke

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Answer 5

Marsha Chan Author

Level 1

59 points

Mar 22, 2008 3:26 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks, Tom. I went to your site http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2007/01/typing-in-international-phonetic.html. Wow, what a pro -- have you got a lot of keyboards on your iDisk! I was thinking of trying your "fun" keyboard xxxlpxuxnx.keylayout but don't know how to download it (probably better not to distract myself any more). BTW, IPA Fun link gives "Not Found: Resource does not exist"

I've been to the http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/diacritics.html before, and I see it doesn't include the "r" colored vowels in American English as in "nurse" ɝ and "doctor" ɚ (commonly shown as "er" in American dictionaries). I'm glad to find them in IPA Unicode keyboard I downloaded from SIL. I wish to find a keystroke combination to get them since copying them from Favorites and inserting them one by one is slo-o-ow

On my international e-list of English pronunciation experts, as a Mac user, I always feel a need to defend against the Windows users' disparaging remarks, so even though I don't currently need to type a lot of IPA, I am trying to figure out how to do what you wrote in the first paragraph. I went to system prefs/international/input menu and checked the box for Unicode Hex Input and then selected that in the "flag" menu at the top right of the finder. The part I got stuck at is "Then you can type any Unicode character via Option/Alt + its hex code." I tried in Word 2004 and TextEdit: (1) typed the code 025A, selected it and keyed OPT-X and (2) keyed OPT-X and then typed the code 025A. Neither resulted in the ɚ "er" symbol. So maybe my steps are wrong.

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,196 points

Mar 22, 2008 3:43 PM in response to Marsha Chan

I was thinking of trying your "fun" keyboard xxxlpxuxnx.keylayout but don't know how to download it

If you email me (tom at bluesky dot org) I'll send you a copy. It basically substitutes similar IPA for normal letters, so your characters look somewhat upside down/backwards. (ndƨı̣pə poʍu/qɐɔʞʍɐɹpƨ)

I wish to find a keystroke combination to get them

Such combinations don't exist in any layout provided with OS X. You need to use a special IPA keyboard layout to have them.

I tried in Word 2004 and TextEdit: (1) typed the code 025A, selected it and keyed OPT-X and (2) keyed OPT-X and then typed the code 025A. Neither resulted in the ɚ "er" symbol. So maybe my steps are wrong.

Yes. You hold the Option/Alt key down while you type 025a. ɚ That's how Mac's work.

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Answer 7

Marsha Chan Author

Level 1

59 points

Mar 22, 2008 5:22 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hey Tom, now I get it, I've gotta hold down the OPT-X while typing the whole unicode number in order to get those symbols. I recently broke my ankle skiing -- I am glad I did not break my fingers!! I'm also glad that a colleague offered to create a custom layout using Ukelele.

Thanks for your expertise!

Marsha
AKA PurpleCast
http://www.sunburstmedia.com/ChanYang/graphics/purplecast.jpg

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