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accents in Notepad
by Guest User - Wednesday, 25 May 2005, 03:20 AM
  Just starting (again!). I plan to write my "scrap" notes on Notepad and that works OK with the Greek keyboard layout
αυτο ειναι κουτι etc
However, I wonder whether there is any way of including the accents on letters in Notepad or should I be using MS Word and using the "control-apostrophe" before the letter (as in Latin based alphabets) (Haven't tried it in Word yet because it's not yet installed on this computer)
Alternatively, is there a way to do accented Greek letters in Open Office (which I do have installed).
Thanks for any advice.
Kind regards
Δαβιδ
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Re: accents in Notepad
by Guest User - Wednesday, 25 May 2005, 05:41 AM
  While waiting for some inspiration I installed Word and allocated alt-keys for the accented letters - first attempt pasted here:
Ευχαριστώ πολύ.
Είναι παράθυρο
Δεν είναι;
Ναι είναι.
However, it would be nice to have a way of doing accented letters directly within Windows so it works in Notepad and Thunderbird (my email programme) and of course on this forum.... so if anyone has an idea how to do that I'd be most grateful.
Kind regards
Δαβιδ
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Re: accents in Notepad
by Greg Brush - Wednesday, 25 May 2005, 12:34 PM
  (Note: this reply is based on Win98 standards. WinXP, as a Unicode-enabled OS, may have more-advanced capabilities.)

Windows' Notepad is, to the best of my knowledge, a Windows-character-set-only text editor and cannot handle fonts and especially Greek accented letters. To do Greek letters, especially those with acute accent, you need a word processor capable of handling a Greek-encoded font. Of course, Windows' Greek Language and Keyboard support is installed.

For scrap notes and quick copy-and-paste, I use Windows' WordPad, which will handle Modern Greek and saves files in an MS Word 6.0/95 format. [If you want to use polytonic Greek, you need a Unicode-capable version of Windows (preferably Win2K or later), Unicode-aware word processor (at least Word 97 or later) and Unicode Greek font.]

For more involved formatting (tables, columns, etc.) that WordPad won't do or do well, I use Word 97, a worldwide standard for word-processing file format. I don't know anything specifically about other competing office suites like Open Office or non-O.E./Mozilla e-mail clients, although as Windows applications, these others should similarly handle these font/keyboard issues.

By, the way, on the standard Windows' Greek keyboard, accents are composed by semicolon key plus accented vowel (>ά,έ,ή,ί,ό,ύ,ώ). Diaeresis is Shift-semicolon plus ι,υ (>ϊ,ϋ), accented diaeresis is RightAlt-semicolon plus ι,υ (>ΐ,ΰ).

Regards,
Greg Brush
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Re: accents in Notepad
by Greg Brush - Wednesday, 25 May 2005, 05:40 PM
  -Addendum-

The preceding was specifically addressed to Win9x users.

I've just looked at WinXP's Notepad, and it does indeed have not only basic font formatting capability (typeface/size/style), it can also address Unicode and UTF-8 character sets, as well as Windows ANSI. In practice, trying to type Unicode text into a Notepad doc presents some codepoint-input issues. However, WinXP DOES allow you to easily use Greek keyboard input to type Modern Greek with accents into Notepad! Here's how:

1.) Make sure you have Greek Language Input installed. Go to Control Panels/Regional & Languages. Select the "Language" tab, then press the "Details" button. If Greek keyboard support does not show as an Installed service, click the "Add" button and select "Greek" from the list. (In addition, there are buttons to set preferences for the Language Bar icon and to assign hot-keys to select keyboard language, if you want.)
2.) A small language icon will then appear on the lower right SysTray. Clicking on the icon will bring up a list of installed input languages--simply click on the desired listing to toggle input to that language. When English is the selected input, the icon will show EN. When Greek is the selected input, the icon will show EL (for Ελληνικά). Select EL when typing Greek text.
3.) In Notepad, select Script:Greek, choose your typeface and size (I particularly like the Greek look of TimesNewRoman), and you're ready to type in Modern Greek.

My comment above about how to compose accents remains applicable to XP, but should read "accents are composed by semicolon key plus vowel (>ά,έ,ή,ί,ό,ύ,ώ)...." See my 11 Nov 2004 reply to "Problem with accent" in Forum 1 for the Windows' keyboard layout in Greek.

Hope this clarifies,
Greg Brush
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Re: accents in Notepad
by Guest User - Wednesday, 11 November 2009, 06:08 PM
  ευχαριστώ πολύ thats the one I was looking for too
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Re: accents in Notepad
by Guest User - Friday, 27 May 2005, 12:25 AM
  Ευχαριστώ πολύ
It was the semicolon trick I needed smile
Δαβιδ