create a font with diacritical markings

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canvasjoe
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create a font with diacritical markings

Post by canvasjoe »

Hi everyone,

I am a school teacher who wants to use a font that will conveniently allow me to
type letter that have the diacritical marks,that is the dictionary pronounciation
key symbols, you see in dictionaries, like the American Heritage or Random House.

Like the long vowels with a macron above them and a short vowel with a breve
above them and a few other marks. The diesersis (double dot) and the circumflex.

Does anyone in this forum know how to do this and could I hire you to
make a verdana-font like this? I would want the diacritical marks to
be specified for specific (dead) keys like the brackets etc.

If this is not appropriate to ask this in this forum is there
a tutorial that could show me how to do this, hopefully with
a manageable learning curve?

Or does such a font already exist?

Any help to get me started is appreciated.

Thanks,

Joe
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by Dave Crosby »

Yes, Just place them in the appropriate Glyph Boxes so you don't have to go to all the problems of mapping new glyphs

Perhaps start with viewtopic.php?f=4&t=386 to learn about Supplementary Planes

Take a look into fonts like Ariel or Times New Roman that already have these glyphs.

Also, viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2797&p=11859&hilit= ... rks#p11859
Image

Do a search for diacritical mark and you will find many others.

Good Luck!
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

canvasjoe wrote:I am a school teacher who wants to use a font that will conveniently allow me to type letter that have the diacritical marks,that is the dictionary pronunciation key symbols, you see in dictionaries, like the American Heritage or Random House.

Like the long vowels with a macron above them and a short vowel with a breve
above them and a few other marks. The diaeresis (double dot) and the circumflex.
What you need is not a special font, but a special keyboard.

My PagePlus keyboard will enable you to type almost any letter with diacritics. Full List of Shortcuts. If there are other special phonetic symbols that you need, let us know which they are.
canvasjoe wrote:Does anyone in this forum know how to do this and could I hire you to make a verdana-font like this? I would want the diacritical marks to
be specified for specific (dead) keys like the brackets etc.
The Verdana font is copyrighted, so we wouldn't be able to use that. The Bitstream Vera font does have a license that enables you or anyone to edit it. My Verajja font is based on Vera, and is not dissimilar to Verdana. You can modify that for your own use. If you wish to redistribute your modified version, you must rename it.

Image
canvasjoe wrote:If this is not appropriate to ask this in this forum is there a tutorial that could show me how to do this, hopefully with a manageable learning curve?
Using FontCreator it is a relatively simple process to add further accented letters to an existing font. Creating a new font from scratch is much harder.

Using the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator to create your own keyboard is also relatively simple.
canvasjoe wrote:Or does such a font already exist?
Probably, if we knew exactly which special diacritics you need.

Charis SIL probably has everything you need and more. It is freeware.
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canvasjoe
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by canvasjoe »

Hi everyone,

Thank you for replying. I just came back today to see if I had any luck. I did!

What I want is a font that will make it easy for teachers to prepare lessons that teach to students the 44 sounds in our language and the 70 letter combinations we use to spell those sounds. This is not taught in public schools that well and is a part of phonics. Basically this font set would be an English Phonetic font.

For example, the letters ea represent 3 sounds; short e in head, long e in each and long a in steak. A font with diacritical marks would help express this.

Some of the 44 sounds used to speak English require diacritical marks to be written as sounds for teaching purposes, and no one font has all those marks (for English). Dictionary Pronunciation Keys are an example of trying to represent the 44 sounds. They do a good job but teachers need to get their hands on a font that makes it easy to type those markings.

This font would not use any upper case letters; only lower case. It would not need punctuation marks or numbers because it will be designed to be used for phonetic exercises and not for normal writing purposes.

The 5 vowels would have the breve as the lower case character and the macron as the shift-upper case character (but the shift-upper case characters would really be lower case vowels with their mark). Here are most of the special diacritical marks that this font would need:

Image

and just a few more perhaps...

Consonants would be lower case in their normal keys but their shift-upper case would be their lower case form with a slash through it to represent a silent letter. For example the word ghost has a silent h. Students would need to have access to an h with a slash through it to represent that it is silent in some words.

The following consonants would need a slash through them: wtpsdfghklzcbnm

Example:
Image


The top row of keys in the keyboard could be used for the single dot, double dot and circumflex vowels. The two double oo’s with breve and macron can be on a dead key with easy access for the right pinky finger. That’s it in a nut-shell though I could be missing something off-hand.

I’d love to make this font myself but may want to hire someone. I’d want to be the copyright owner and decide how to distribute it. I’m thinking of writing a book on the subject and having the font accompany the book. To distribute a highly specialized font like this would be meaningless without directions of how it is used and can be a teaching tool for reading and phonics. Teachers who use this font would have to understand the 44 sounds really well. I’m targeting teachers and parents to help their children read and spell with more “phonetic awareness” (as they would say in phonics).

Bhikkuh, I like the idea of using the Bitstream Vera font from which to modify into this font set. I am not sure about the keyboard driver-software. I’m open to it but a Unicode font without software to use it may be better.

I have installed FontCreator but have not yet used it. Tomorrow I will read the instruction guide and start playing with it. I downloaded Bitstream Vera.

I am very grateful to anyone of you who will be kind enough to assist me.

Joe Panico
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

canvasjoe wrote:This font would not use any upper case letters; only lower case. It would not need punctuation marks or numbers because it will be designed to be used for phonetic exercises and not for normal writing purposes.
If the font doesn't include capitals and punctuation, the users will find themselves constantly switching fonts to type other text. Since a Unicode font can support many thousands of characters there is no problem including all of the regular characters as well as the phonetic ones.
canvasjoe wrote:The 5 vowels would have the breve as the lower case character and the macron as the shift-upper case character (but the shift-upper case characters would really be lower case vowels with their mark).
This is why you need to develop and test the font yourself, to see if it is practical to type with. Autocorrect could play havoc with your method — ǎ might be converted to ā if it starts a sentence. Of course, users can turn off autocorrect, but ideally the font would not need too many special instructions, and would not be limited to use in Word, but would work equally well in any application.
canvasjoe wrote:Here are most of the special diacritical marks that this font would need:
Most are standard Unicode characters that you will find in Verajja, but dotless ı with a dot above is going to be confused with regular lowercase i. Only ȧ, ė, ȯ exist in Verajja IIRC.
canvasjoe wrote:and just a few more perhaps...
You will also find the combining double macron and combining double breve. So too are upper and lowercase eng — Ŋ ŋ
canvasjoe wrote:Consonants would be lower case in their normal keys but their shift-upper case would be their lower case form with a slash through it to represent a silent letter. For example the word ghost has a silent h. Students would need to have access to an h with a slash through it to represent that it is silent in some words.
Here is where it starts to get difficult. A combining slash could be used, but each letter is a different width, so the silent consonants really need to be designed as specific glyphs.

Is the use of slashed consonants standard practice in phonetics or your own invention?
canvasjoe wrote:The top row of keys in the keyboard could be used for the single dot, double dot and circumflex vowels. The two double oo’s with breve and macron can be on a dead key with easy access for the right pinky finger. That’s it in a nut-shell though I could be missing something off-hand.
I find that shift hyphen key is a logical choice for the macron dead key for typing ā ē ī ō ū.
canvasjoe wrote:I’d love to make this font myself but may want to hire someone. I’d want to be the copyright owner and decide how to distribute it.
Making it yourself is likely to be the only viable route. The design process could be very lengthy and costly. The Vera (and Verajja) fonts are released under GNU (copyleft) license. If you want to retain copyrights to your font, then you also need to design the basic alphabet shapes — a great deal of extra work — or find a suitable typeface that is in the public domain.
canvasjoe wrote:I am not sure about the keyboard driver-software. I’m open to it but a Unicode font without software to use it may be better.
Using the standard UK or US keyboard strictly limits the number of letters that you can type. It also means assigning accented lowercase to uppercase, punctuation, and numerals, as you suggested. If the font needs specialised training and/or keyboard charts to use it, the likelihood of widespread adoption will quickly evaporate.

Take a good look at existing Windows keyboards, e.g. US International, French, or German keyboards to see how they work with dead keys. I suspect that using dead keys will be a more viable method of typing with your phonetic font, though it will require a customised Windows keyboard.

Finally, consider the extensibility of the font. If teachers want to type French, Spanish, or German words with phonetics, for example, how would that work?
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canvasjoe
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by canvasjoe »

Thank you Bhikkhu for taking the time to reply.

I imagine it is true that the more the font has normal lower-case and upper-case characters then the less the user will have to switch back and forth among fonts. The purpose of the font though is to design phonetic worksheets, and show examples of phonetic analysis. This is a special purpose and the users will know that it is limited font. It is part of the package. I still don’t understand the capabilities of using special characters to have a realistic sense of what the font can be.

Where I am confused is if I made a font what is the limitations of using the dead keys? Could I for example, using Unicode and making glyphs with slashes through them, have those slashed characters available by simply having the user hold, say Shift-Ctrl + h, and then the h with a slash appears? Or Shift-Ctrl +any consonant like p, and then the p with a slash appears? Can I set special glyphs up like that?

The slashes, by the way to answer your question, are not my own invention, nor standard use in classrooms. Academic specialists and phonic researchers use them in their books. But school children can easily learn to use slashes and the other markings in phonetic exercises, which would be to their advantage and hence my interest to create the font.

Bhikkhu, you said that Verajja already has many of these special characters. Where can I download the font and start using the characters? How would I access the special characters with that font?

I tried for example to insert special characters in MS Word 2007 and I had no luck. I looked at the character map and held Alt + the designated key for a special character and a completely other character appeared. The character map was not practical or accurate. Is this what you are referring to when you say that Verajja has special characters? Please explain.

I’d like to get to a point where at least I am handy using special characters with a Unicode font like Verajja. That would be a good next step for me and will spark ideas for the creation of a special font.

I realize I will have to create a font from scratch if I want the copyright on it. Maybe a copyleft will be easier. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Thank you again, Bhikkhu, for your time and patience.

Joe Panico
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

canvasjoe wrote:I still don’t understand the capabilities of using special characters to have a realistic sense of what the font can be.
It is best to make sure you understand this before trying to design a font or a keyboard. You could go through many prototypes before arriving at a workable solution.
canvasjoe wrote:Where I am confused is if I made a font what is the limitations of using the dead keys? Could I for example, using Unicode and making glyphs with slashes through them, have those slashed characters available by simply having the user hold, say Shift-Ctrl + h, and then the h with a slash appears? Or Shift-Ctrl +any consonant like p, and then the p with a slash appears? Can I set special glyphs up like that?
A "dead" key is typed first, followed by a regular alpha key. For example, one may type `(below the Escape key) followed by e to get è. Then one types `followed by o to get ò etc. It is a method that is easy to learn and easy to remember, which is why dead keys are used with the US International keyboard, French keyboard, etc. My custom PagePlus keyboard (see my first post) makes extensive use of dead keys. The forward slash could be assigned as a dead key, followed by a consonant to type a consonant with a slash. That would be easy to remember. (Slash followed by slash or space would type /)

One can also assign characters to ctrl + alt + key, for typing e.g. áéíóú which is used by the US International keyboard. One can also assign Ctrl or Ctrl + shift + letter using the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator.
canvasjoe wrote:Bhikkhu, you said that Verajja already has many of these special characters. Where can I download the font and start using the characters? How would I access the special characters with that font?
See my sig, and my first post.
canvasjoe wrote:I tried for example to insert special characters in MS Word 2007 and I had no luck. I looked at the character map and held Alt + the designated key for a special character and a completely other character appeared. The character map was not practical or accurate.
Pretty much any Unicode character can be inserted in Word or Wordpad with Alt + decimal codepoint. ṃ (7747) ṅ (7749), but as you say it is not very practical.
canvasjoe wrote:Is this what you are referring to when you say that Verajja has special characters? Please explain.
Verajja and especially Charis SIL (see my first post) contain lots of Unicode characters for phonetics such as the combining double breve and combining double macron, eng, etc. You can view all of these extended characters in FontCreator, and find their decimal codepoints for typing in Wordpad.
canvasjoe wrote:I’d like to get to a point where at least I am handy using special characters with a Unicode font like Verajja. That would be a good next step for me and will spark ideas for the creation of a special font.
Try installing the US International keyboard from Control Panel, or install my PagePlus keyboard (I hope it works on Vista). I have many years experience of typing with diacritics with custom keyboards in WordPerfect and OpenOffice as I need these diacritics for Pāḷi words — ā ī ū ḍ ḷ ṃ ṇ ṅ ñ ṭ. I found that Ctrl + Letter and Ctrl + Shift + letter was the easiest to type and remember, but Pāḷi only needs those twenty letters (including Uppercase with Ctrl Shift Ā Ī Ū etc.) If you need a whole lot more letters to include other languages, the dead key approach is easier. I can easily type all of these letters with dead keys: á é í ó ú å ā ē ī ō ū ṝ ḹ ṃ ṇ ṣ ṛ ṭ ḍ ḥ ṭ à è ì ò ù â ê î ô û ǎ ě ǐ ǒ ǔ etc., without having to consult a keyboard chart. Frequently used letters are soon memorized because the shortcut is obvious, e.g. Shift 6 (^) followed by aeiou for âêîôû and the same with AEIOU for Â Ê Î Ô Û
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canvasjoe
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by canvasjoe »

Hi Bhikkhu. I follow everything you wrote. Thanks for explaining the dead keys.

I downloaded your PagePlus. I could not unzip it to get an .exe file to install it. I could only manage to turn the .7z file into a .rar file but still could go no further in my attempt to install it.

I downloaded the Charis SIL font and installed it, but still I have not a clue as to how to use it. I downloaded its pdf files and the U+Unicode numbers it provides don’t work on my MS Word 2007. I’m still at a loss.

I found a company that will make me a customized keyboard but they have not quoted me yet.

The prospect of making a copyleft font based on Vera is still good but I have not yet started to explore FontCreator or the MS KB Layout Creator.

Very grateful for your time.

Joe
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

canvasjoe wrote:I downloaded the Charis SIL font and installed it, but still I have not a clue as to how to use it. I downloaded its pdf files and the U+Unicode numbers it provides don’t work on my MS Word 2007. I’m still at a loss.
I have no idea why not. Since it works in Wordpad, Word 2007 should also work fine.
  1. Open the Charis SIL font in Font Creator
  2. Set the unicode options to decimal in Tools, Options, General, Values
  3. Find any character you wish to type, e.g. the combining double breve in the overview window and note the decimal Unicode codepoint — 861 in this case
    Combining Double Breve.png
    Combining Double Breve.png (428 Bytes) Viewed 14805 times
  4. Open Wordpad
  5. Type a vowel
  6. Hold down Alter key and type 861 to type the combining double breve
  7. Type another vowel
Combining Double Breve Wordpad.png
Combining Double Breve Wordpad.png (11.46 KiB) Viewed 14808 times
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Re: create a font with diacritical markings

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

canvasjoe wrote:I downloaded your PagePlus. I could not unzip it to get an .exe file to install it. I could only manage to turn the .7z file into a .rar file but still could go no further in my attempt to install it.
WinRar, IZarc, or WinZip can extract 7z archives, or download and install 7-Zip, which is better than any of those archivers.
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