font. Latin 1 supplement

Question

Level 1

8 points

font. Latin 1 supplement

Hello,

I have a question. Really having a tough time to figure out the answer. Maybe someone has it alreadya and can share 🙂 . Many thanks anyway for just reading!

So:

I am typing in sanskrit, so, when typing in roman alphabet I need some supplements like ā ṣ ḥ ś ī

My font for roman alphatet is DV1-TTGanesh. When instaling it (have the copywrite version) says in the especification that there is the latin 1 supplement that covers those characters.

The thing is that when I write with that font, is everything ok until I try to use one of those leters that is compose of a dot and vocal for example ī . Then, the font chages to Helvetica, for example.

At first I thought that the font didnt had those characters, then that was why it was changing font.

But I figure out, that is not true. The reason is that I opened a text already writen by another person, using DV1-TTGanesh, and those letters compose of 2 things, are nicely in the correct font, the same! not changing.

So, meanwhile I have to copy the letter I need and paste everytime from a document to another . Torture! haha

So... my question is... where are those letters? who can i find how to write them? I use the keyboard screen but there are not there. There are just showing the elements separetly.

... clues?

🙂 thanks!

MacBook Air, iOS 10.1.1, SIerra.

Posted on Nov 4, 2016 10:47 AM

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Answer 1

RJTUK

Level 3

654 points

Nov 4, 2016 10:54 AM in response to lolaloletalu

Hi there,

When you installed the new font did you quit the App you are trying to use and re-open it again?

I have seen it mentioned that Pages may not work with sanskrit fonts properly.

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,484 points

Nov 4, 2016 11:13 AM in response to lolaloletalu

lolaloletalu wrote:

my question is... where are those letters? who can i find how to write them? I use the keyboard screen but there are not there. There are just showing the elements separetly.

To write transliterated sanskrit you normally use the ABC Extended (formerly called US Extended) keyboard layout. To activate that you go to system preferences/keyboard/input sources and use the plus and add buttons, then you select ABC Extended in the "flag" menu at the top right of the screen.

The shortcuts for making the various diacritic marks you need are given in

http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/accents/codemacext.html

macron above is option a, then the base letter. dot below is option x, then the base letter. acute above is option e, then the base letter. āḥś

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Answer 3

lolaloletalu Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 4, 2016 2:01 PM in response to RJTUK

Yes I did.

Interesting.. because my experience and my teachers.. so far is that microsoft word is not working nicely with sanskrit.

Many thanks!

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Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,484 points

Nov 4, 2016 2:35 PM in response to lolaloletalu

lolaloletalu wrote:

because my experience and my teachers.. so far is that microsoft word is not working nicely with sanskrit.

I'm sure MS Word has no problem with the transliterated sanskrit you are talking about in your question. As for sanskrit written in Devanagari script, that is as different matter. That should work ok in Pages, but Word for Mac has always had poor support for Indic scripts, so one would have to test the latest update. Last time I checked, Devanagari seemed to work OK with the Kohinoor font from Apple, but I don't know if that has the special sanskrit conjuncts.

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Answer 5

lolaloletalu Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 4, 2016 2:42 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Tom, 🙂

thank you very much for your help.

I already have the US extended installed. And using it.

The problem is not that i can't type them. The problem comes When using DV1 TT Ganesh font, --> for example, I want to type a macron in a, I use option+a, but changes automaticallywthe font type.
So, I thought "thats because" the font type doesn't have a ā as a character.
The thing is that is not true, Because when opening a document that has been written with that same font, as you see in image, apears the ā as a single font character, according to design.

So my question, is.. how can I find that ā to type it?
It must be somewhere isnt it?

This is the info of the font... and says it has a latin 1 supplement

:

but when installed in the font book of mac, shows this:

😀 many many thanks for any piece of info that might help.

Smile!

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,484 points

Nov 5, 2016 8:48 AM in response to lolaloletalu

To see all the characters in a font using font book, you need to do View > Repertoire.

Thanks for that info about the font, which is very important. It looks like that font is non-Unicode. The info you posted puts the special sanskrit letters at codepoints that actually belong to other characters. For example the codepoint shown for ṭ is 00B6, which reallly belongs to the pilcrow sign ¶. If you really want to use this font, you may be able to type ṭ with the key option 7, but some apps will not support non-unicode fonts at all.

The ABC extended keyboard generates Unicode, and the font has no characters in those positions, so another font gets used.

I strongly recommend you NOT use such a non-Unicode font. Unicode has been standard for this kind of work for 10 years at least I think. Nobody who does not have your font will be able to read any text you produce, and it will never be usable on the internet or searchable. The only reason I can think of for using non-Unicode would be if the end result was only to be printed on paper and the electronic version was not going to be used for anything.

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Answer 7

Nov 4, 2016 3:38 PM in response to lolaloletalu

Don't use a non-Unicode font, particularly a Windows TrueType font. OSX is over 16 years old and your method of input dates back to OS9. Your colleague seems to be using a similarly dated method of input in Windows. You can use Word for Windows to resave the files as Unicode encoded, so you can use a better font on your Mac.

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k21214&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup30994

http://sanskritweb.net/macfonts/index.html

To insert the correct characters in a Unicode font you use the Character palette found on the bottom of the Edit menu.

Depending on which version of Pages you are using the exact location varies. With the Character palette open click on Latin in the left column and you will find the extended Latin as you scroll down. Double clicking on the character inserts it in your text. Using the correct Keyboard will assist with methods of typing the characters.

Peter

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