Word Processing in Greek - Part Two
The first problem with word-processing in ancient Greek is finding a font with Greek characters. (see Part 1)
When you have a Unicode font with the polytonic Greek characters, the next problem is how to access them from
the keyboard.
Problem # 2 - Accessing the Greek characters.
In order to do word-processing in ancient Greek, one not only needs a font with Greek characters, as well as the
Latin characters used for English, one also needs to be able to access them easily by means of a keyboard.
There are programs available, some for free download, which give a "virtual keyboard" which enables one to use a
single keyboard, but switch between character sets. Some include the ability to switch between Hebrew, Russian,
even simple Chinese. However, I have not found one which is completely reliable. One of the best, which I used for
some time, works very well up to a point - then it seems to run out of memory and freezes the word-processor or
even crashes the computer.
However, I have found a simpler method, using MSWord, which involves a bit of time to set up - but less time than
installing and getting used to a virtual keyboard program.
If you don't have MSWord, the word-processing program you do have will probably have a similar capability.
RTLM - Read the lovely manual and find out how to "insert symbol" and "allocate short cuts".
Using MSWord, and a Unicode font, it is possible to set up a series of "short cuts" - keystrokes which will access
characters outside the "Basic Latin" range associated with the normal keys.
The keyboard has a couple of keys - "Ctrl" (Control) and "Alt" (Alternate) which can be used in conjunction with
the other keys to link to other characters.
In the Normal.dot template used by MSWord to open any new documents, the "Ctrl" key is already used for short-
cuts for various commands : "Copy", "Cut", "Undo", "Paste" etc. These are so useful that I keep them, and only
use the "Alt" key for accessing foreign language characters.
To set up shortcuts for the Greek characters (using MSWord) :
1. Open MSWord, and choose "Times New Roman" as the font. The font size doesn't matter.
2. Go to the "Insert" menu. Choose "Insert Symbol" OR use the shortcut Ctrl + d to bring up the dialog box.
The dialog box shows all the available characters in that font on your computer.
Starting from the top (the Basic Latin range) you will see the characters normally associated with the keyboard.
Then there are more subsets. There should be a box at the top right with a drop-down menu for the subsets. - choose
"Basic Greek". This brings you to the region of the Basic Greek characters. You are not going to need to assign
shortcuts for all of them - some of the capital letters are the same as English.
In the first row of the Basic Greek subset there are some capital letters with what look like commas in front of them
- ignore them. They are followed by "A" and "B" - ignore them too - we will use the Latin capitals.
After the "B" there is a "Γ" - a capital gamma, (which has a "g" sound). Point to it with the mouse pointer.
3. At the bottom of the "Insert Symbol" dialog box there is a button labeled "Shortcut Key". Click on it - up comes
another box labeled "Customize Keyboard".
There are two boxes towards the middle of the "Customize Keyboard" dialog box, labeled "Press new shortcut
key" and "Current keys" - both are probably blank. Put the cursor in the "Press new shortcut key" box and type on
the keyboard : Alt -Shift - G (holding them all down together). There is a drop-down box at the lower right-hand
corner of the dialog box labeled "Save changes in"- choose Normal.dot as the option.
Then click on the button which says "Assign"
Congratulations - you have assigned your first Greek shortcut.
Now every time you press Alt-Shift-G you should get a capital gamma - Γ - in your text.
