Keyboards for Unicode
UPDATE HISTORY
7/28/02: bug
notice for the Hebrew keyboard under WinXP
2/25/02: Hebrew
keyboard added (see bottom of the page for details)
2/02/02: some
minor fixes to the Greek keyboard
SOME
BACKGROUND
Unicode provides us with
lots of useful characters but entering them is not easy. I have created three keyboards, one for
Latin, one for Greek, and one for Hebrew, to run under Tavultesoft Keyman 5.0. This is the best utility that I have found
for creating Windows keyboards.
The keyboards have several
important features:
·
complete
coverage of all the relevant Unicode characters
·
keystrokes
are mnemonic and easy to remember
·
Greek
and Latin keyboards share many keystrokes (e.g., an acute is entered with the
apostrophe key in both). So if you work
in Greek and in Latin-script languages, you have the advantage of a consistent
interface.
·
in
Greek, the keystrokes for diacritics work together; you can type the keystroke
for a smooth breathing, followed by that for an acute, and you will get both
diacritics over the vowel you type next.
You don’t need to remember separate keystrokes for the smooth plus acute
combination.
·
although
initally designed for classicists and medievalists, the Latin keyboard can in
fact be used to enter the Unicode characters for a very large variety of
European languages.
SYSTEM
REQUIREMENTS
These keyboards should
work with any standard application under Windows NT or Windows 2000. I have been told that the Greek keyboard
works under Windows XP, although I have not yet tried this myself, and I expect
that the Latin keyboard will also.
In general, Keyman 5
keyboards that implement Unicode do not work under Windows 95/98/Me. However, the developers of Keyman have
created a utility called WordLink that allows Keyman Unicode keyboards to cooperate
with Word; by downloading and installing WordLink, you can use these keyboards
with Word 97 or 2000 under Windows 9x.
You can download WordLink by clicking on this link.
You must have Keyman 5.0
installed; Unicode keyboards do not work with earlier versions of Keyman. If you don’t yet have Keyman, choose one of
the packages below that will install the runtime Keyman module for you. If you do have Keyman already installed and
you receive a “corrupt keyboard” message when you try to install the Greek or
Latin keyboard, you probably need to upgrade to a more recent version of
Keyman.
You also need font(s) that support(s) the characters
you are interested in. I know of only
one freely available font that supports all the characters covered by these
keyboards: my own Cardo font. Other popular Unicode fonts such as Palatino
Linotype, the Titus Project font, and James Kass’s Code 2000 have not yet been updated
to include all the characters added in Unicode 3.0 and 3.1, but you can use any
Unicode font that has the characters you need.
For more about this see my book.
The documentation for the
Greek and Latin keyboards is in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. You need the free Acrobat Reader version 4 or
greater; you can download the Reader from Adobe’s
website.
HOW
TO DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE GREEK AND LATIN KEYBOARDS
If you want a complete
package that contains the keyboards, the Cardo font, documentation, and a
runtime version of Keyman, click on this link. If you want the keyboards, the documentation,
and a runtime version of Keyman (without the font), click here.
Save the file you have chosen to your hard disk, then double-click on it
and items will be automatically installed and a group on your Start menu
created.
If you want just the
keyboards and documentation, and you already
have Keyman 5.0 installed, click here. Save the file on your computer and
double-click to extract it. You should
then install the keyboard(s) into Keyman by double-clicking on the keyboard
file(s).
ABOUT
THE HEBREW KEYBOARD
Note 7/24/02: The Hebrew
keyboard was originally created while I was running Windows 98. Since moving to Windows XP, I have discovered
some bugs. It will be a while before I
can fix it. When I do, I will post the
information here.
In addition to the general
comments above about Keyman keyboards, the following information is specific to
the Hebrew keyboard:
·
the
keyboard is designed to work under Win2000/XP, with Hebrew support enabled both
in the operating system and in Microsoft Word.
The documentation tells how to do this if you haven’t already done so.
·
if
you wish to use the Hebrew keyboard on Win98/Me with WordLink, as explained
above, you won’t have the right-to-left support and you will have to enter the
text from left to right. The keyboard
will function as advertised with only two exceptions, both of which are
explained in the documentation and both of which can be gotten around fairly
easily. Both of them involve vowel
points, so if you are mainly interested in typing the consonants you should
have no problems.
·
this
keyboard is designed for those who want a phonetic layout based on the US/UK
keyboard. It also supplies easy access
to all the Unicode Hebrew characters and some additional symbols. The Microsoft-supplied keyboard is based on
the Israeli national layout and does not provide access to all the points or
any of the cantillation marks.
·
you
must have an appropriate Unicode font installed. I am in the process of adding Hebrew to my
Cardo font, but it is not yet ready. I
have had good results with the David font (supplied with Internet Explorer and
other Microsoft products) under Win2000.
How well the vowel points will line up varies from font to font.
·
this
release should be regarded as a late Beta version. It’s working well for me but needs to be
tested on a variety of systems.
·
the
documentation is in Microsoft Word format.
I will make a PDF version someday soon.
If you want the Hebrew
keyboard, the documentation, and a runtime version of Keyman, click here.
Save the file you have chosen to your hard disk, then double-click on it
and items will be automatically installed and a group on your Start menu
created.
If you want just the
Hebrew keyboard and documentation, and
you already have Keyman 5.0 installed, click here. Save the file on your computer and
double-click to extract it. You should
then install the keyboard into Keyman by double-clicking on the keyboard file.
OTHER
KEYMAN KEYBOARDS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
·
a
Greek keyboard by Manuel Lopez, designed for those who are accustomed to typing
in Beta Code, is available along with other keyboards from the keyboard
download page on Tavultesoft’s web site (http://www.tavultesoft.com/keyman/downloads/keyboards/)
·
Lukas
Pietsch has Roman, Greek, and IPA keyboards designed for those who use a German
keyboard on his web page, http://people.freenet.de/LukasPietsch/Keyman/Keyboards.html.
Last updated July
28, 2002