Special characters

jmt356
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Special characters

Post by jmt356 »

Are there any keyboard shortcuts to type bars over vowels, as in ā, or dots under letters, such as ḥ? I cannot find these symbols in the International Keyboard and want to avoid inserting them through the Symbol character map or through the Unicode codes, if at all possible. Rather, what I am looking for is a shortcut that indicates that a bar should be inserted over or a dot under the letter I am about to type, in the same manner that apostrophe + any vowel creates an accent mark above the vowel (e.g., "é") when typed in the International Keyboard.
Regards,

JMT

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Rudi
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Re: Special characters

Post by Rudi »

Not sure if you'll be able to get all the characters with this technique (and I'm sure it only works in MS Word), but try this...
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Rudi

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HansV
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Re: Special characters

Post by HansV »

No, there aren't.

You could create the following macros in Normal.dot(m) and assign them to custom keyboard shortcuts:

Code: Select all

Sub OverBar()
    Selection.TypeText ChrW(&H304)
End Sub

Sub UnderDot()
    Selection.TypeText ChrW(&H323)
End Sub
Type the letter, then invoke the OverBar or UnderDot macro.
Best wishes,
Hans

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Jay Freedman
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Re: Special characters

Post by Jay Freedman »

You can assign shortcuts to the combining macron (&H304) and combining dot below (&H323) characters without making macros.

In the Insert > Symbol > More Symbols dialog, select one of the symbols and click the Shortcut Key button.

Image

The Customize Keyboard dialog will appear, with the symbol already selected. (The red arrow shows where the symbol is displayed, but it's hard to see.) Enter a shortcut key combination and click the Assign button, then Close.

Image

Repeat for the other symbol. Be sure to save the template the next time you close Word.

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HansV
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Re: Special characters

Post by HansV »

That's better, thanks!
Best wishes,
Hans

jmt356
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Re: Special characters

Post by jmt356 »

Jay Freedman wrote:You can assign shortcuts to the combining macron (&H304) and combining dot below (&H323) characters without making macros.

In the Insert > Symbol > More Symbols dialog, select one of the symbols and click the Shortcut Key button.

Image

The Customize Keyboard dialog will appear, with the symbol already selected. (The red arrow shows where the symbol is displayed, but it's hard to see.) Enter a shortcut key combination and click the Assign button, then Close.

Image

Repeat for the other symbol. Be sure to save the template the next time you close Word.
Thank you, but how do I get the combining macron (e.g., ā) to not cut off the letter when it is capitalized? I want to avoid, for example, A̅ or I̅ and instead get them to display as Ā.
Regards,

JMT

jmt356
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Re: Special characters

Post by jmt356 »

jmt356 wrote:Thank you, but how do I get the combining macron (e.g., ā) to not cut off the letter when it is capitalized? I want to avoid, for example, A̅ or I̅ and instead get them to display as Ā.
In my above post, the combining macron does not cut off the capitalized letter when displayed in IE, but it shows up as off-centered and to the right. In Word, it cuts off the vowel, but is not off-centered. How do I correct this behavior?
Regards,

JMT

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HansV
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Re: Special characters

Post by HansV »

I don't think there is a way to add a macron or dot below in a consistent way to all characters through a single keyboard shortcut.
You can assign keyboard shortcuts to individual Unicode characters such as Ā and ḥ, but if you need many of them, it would be difficult to come up with an easy-to-memorize shortcut for each of them...
Best wishes,
Hans

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Jay Freedman
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Re: Special characters

Post by Jay Freedman »

The macron's behavior seems to depend on the font you use it with. Using the combining macron from the Arial Unicode MS font with Arial base font, the macro centers over the letters, and its height varies with the letter's height. With other common fonts, though, it's offset to the right and its height is just above that of lower case letters without ascenders.

Image

I also tried using the macron from Lucida Sans Unicode, and it behaved the same way.

jmt356
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Re: Special characters

Post by jmt356 »

Hans: Will using your macro give me the results I desire?

Jay Freedman: When programming my shortcuts, I entered Arial Unicode MS as the Font and Combining Diacritical Marks as the Subset. In my text, I am using the Arial font. Yet the combining macron and combining dot both appear off center.
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JMT

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HansV
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Re: Special characters

Post by HansV »

jmt356 wrote:Hans: Will using your macro give me the results I desire?
No - for some character/font combinations, the overbar or underdot will be off-center.
Best wishes,
Hans

jmt356
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Re: Special characters

Post by jmt356 »

HansV wrote: You can assign keyboard shortcuts to individual Unicode characters such as Ā and ḥ, but if you need many of them, it would be difficult to come up with an easy-to-memorize shortcut for each of them...
I am trying to assign keyboard shortcuts to a, e and i with the combining macron and h, s, d, t and z with the combining dot by going into Insert | Symbol and clicking Keyboard Shortcut for each symbol. however, I am having trouble finding several of these characters among the many hundreds of symbols in the dialogue box. Is anyone aware of the font and subset in which I can find these characters to making searching for them easier?
Regards,

JMT

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HansV
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Re: Special characters

Post by HansV »

Try Latin Extended-A for the letters with a combining macron:
S0882.png
and Latin Extended Additional for the letters with a combining dot below or above (you have to scroll down a bit for s and t):
S0883.png
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Best wishes,
Hans