Unusual letters like the Greek Pi

[Anne Hext]

There is provision for all these letters and digits on the font screen but does anyone know how to actually type them once they are drawn. I have a list of Ansi codes for a lot of the main letters but pi is not among them.

[vanisaac]

I have my computer set up with several different keyboard layouts. You can select them at start menu - Settings - Control Panels - Keyboard. One of the tabs is "Language", and that's where you can setup a bunch of different keyboards on your computer by clicking "add", and selecting "properties". I am set up to type Greek, and maybe these will work in the forums: πυθαγορας, in Russian: привет! and an International English so I can type things like äéñ and î. I also have a Spanish keyboard for God knows what reason, and an English Dvorak keyboard which I establish as the default Danish layout due to the "DA" code that shows on my taskbar.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

αβψδεφγηιξκλμνοπ;ρστθωςχυζ
ΑΒΨΔΕΦΓΗΙΞΚΛΜΝΟΠ;ΡΣΤΘΩΣΧΥΖ

1234567890-=
!@#$%^&*()_+

;ςερτυθιοπ[]
;ΣΕΡΤΥΘΙΟΠ{}

ασδφγηξκλ΄'\
ΑΣΣΔΦΓΗΞΚΛ¨"|

ζχψωβνμ,./
ΖΧΨΩΒΝΜ<>?

Greek rules! But \ is dead on my Greek keyboard.

Unicode Codepoint for PI: U+03C0 : GREEK SMALL LETTER PI
Decimal codepoint 960

[vanisaac]

Greek rules! But \ is dead on my Greek keyboard.

Hmmm, mine maps as \ with the windows Greek keyboard layout. The only problem I have is that the windows Greek keyboard is different from the Beta Code layout that is pretty standard among Hellenic Classicists. I emailed a Greek final to my prof one year just using the Beta Code, and the Classical Greek fonts out there tend to use the same system for Greek input. Oh well, this is completely off-topic for this forum.

[Yehuda]

The nice thing about the Windows Greek keyboard is that it is very similar to the standard US English keyboard, so, for example, pi is on the "P" key. (BTW, the keyboard wouldn't be good for Classical Greek because it is based on the modern Greek monotonic standard, so it doesn't have keys for the now-archaic accent marks of polytonic Greek.)

[vanisaac]

(BTW, the keyboard wouldn't be good for Classical Greek because it is based on the modern Greek monotonic standard, so it doesn't have keys for the now-archaic accent marks of polytonic Greek.)

A fact which I am acutely aware of.

The Beta Code is also similar to a standard English keyboard, with the Greek alphabet typed as follows: abgdezhqiklmncoprstufxyw, with a j for a final sigma. It generally follows the rule: if it sounds the same in English and Greek, they'll have the same key. Exception: Chi maps to X because X comes from Greek Chi. Other mappings follow etymology or graphical similarity: Eta (Η,η) is H; Theta (Θ,θ),Q; Psi (Ψ,ψ), Y; Omega (Ω,ω), as W; and Xi (Ξ,ξ), C (it was left over in the end). Accents are typed after the vowel: acute as /; grave, \; circumflex, =. Diaeresis, +; Ypogrammeni (iota subscript), |.

[Anne Hext]

OK I have tried out the keyboard language changes and used the Greek which is quite fun. However for maths problems it would not be good as you have to restart the computer each time you change the default keyboard. Can you access the letter by entering the Unicode ref of U+0c30 and alt or another key. Or even better can I create an access ref using alt + 0xxx (eg: alt + 0158)

Chelsea

[vanisaac]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa! You do not have to restart your computer each time. You should be able to click on the blue icon down in the toolbar, then select the Greek keyboard, "El". You then just type away. There are also programs out there that let you make custom keyboards, but I've never used one, so I don't know how well they work, or how easy it is to make the layouts.

[Anne Hext]

OK I can now slip in and out of Greek French and English at a click thats good.