Diacretic marks in Word

[GridLok]

Can anyone tell me how to apply diacretic marks to letters when
spelling words from a non-English language. I recently had to us some
names that had a mark like a small 'v' over some letters, but I
couldn't work out how to put them there

 

[Chris Ridd]

Can anyone tell me how to apply diacretic marks to letters when
spelling words from a non-English language. I recently had to us some
names that had a mark like a small 'v' over some letters, but I
couldn't work out how to put them there

For acute and grave accents, umlauts, circumflexes and tildes, you can
use the normal OS X "dead key" feature. eg Option-e followed by o gives
you o-acute. Your Mac's Keyboard viewer will show the dead keys if you
hold down Option.

For less common diacriticals, you'll need to hunt them down in your
Mac's Character palette.

If you go to the Finder, choose "Mac Help" and search for "accent" it
will show you how to get to the Keyboard viewer and Character palette.

Cheers,

Chris

 

[micki]

Can anyone tell me how to apply diacretic marks to letters when
spelling words from a non-English language. I recently had to us some
names that had a mark like a small 'v' over some letters, but I
couldn't work out how to put them there

I believe it is "diacritic"...go to the menu >'insert">"symbols" and
you should have a choice under symbols tab, perhaps in the font you are
using, or go to the 'Special Characters' tab in same window and you
might be able to find something.

 

[GridLok]

Thanks micki & Chris. Yes, I know how to use the character palette,
but not how to combine the mark with the relevant letter i.e. get the
chosen diacritic (or whatever) to sit over the top of the letter to
which it relates. Any ideas?

 

[GridLok]

Thanks CyberTaz. Yes I'm familiar with all the character/accent marks
available in the Word help options. Unfortunately they do not have
some that are used in the English transliteration of Slavic words (a
person's surname in this case). I've just looked under European
scripts in the Character Palette and there aren't any. Any idea how
they can be obtained?

I think Chris' suggestion may not have been as clear as intended - go into
*Word* Help, search using the keyword [accent] & the first result should
give you everything you want.

Searching *Mac* Help for [accent] will yield the results as Chris indicated.
The information is very much the same, but Word Help gives you a list which
some find easier to work from. If using the Character Palette it isn't a
matter of locating the diacritic but locating the character *combined* with
the diacritic.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Thanks micki & Chris. Yes, I know how to use the character palette,
but not how to combine the mark with the relevant letter i.e. get the
chosen diacritic (or whatever) to sit over the top of the letter to
which it relates. Any ideas?

 

[GridLok]

Dear ALL!! Got it sorted. Rather slow on the uptake I fear - simply
go to System Preferences > International > Input Menus and select the
language required, to add to whatever one already has open - in my case
English and Greek (polytonic). A small national flag icon is added to
the relevant drop-down menu operated from the menus bar - at top
(right) of screen.

The only problem I have now is, as has been for sometime, in Word, the
Keyboard Viewer will only display English (US), regardles of the input
menu displayed. Still not to worry. I've found that if I also have
Text Edit facility open I have only to click in it and the Keyboard
Viewer reflects the Input Menu selected. This allows me to work out
which key(s) to strike if it is only the one character that is
required, or type a whole word, phrase or sentence in Text Edit, then
cut and paste into the Word document - a bit clumsy and I wish there
was a way of getting Word to cooperate with the Keyboard Viewer; but
I've asked for help on that before and there doesn't seem to be a way
around it. May be in some future edition of Office?!

Thanks once again to all.

Thanks CyberTaz. Yes I'm familiar with all the character/accent marks
available in the Word help options. Unfortunately they do not have
some that are used in the English transliteration of Slavic words (a
person's surname in this case). I've just looked under European
scripts in the Character Palette and there aren't any. Any idea how
they can be obtained?

I think Chris' suggestion may not have been as clear as intended - go into
*Word* Help, search using the keyword [accent] & the first result should
give you everything you want.

Searching *Mac* Help for [accent] will yield the results as Chris indicated.
The information is very much the same, but Word Help gives you a list which
some find easier to work from. If using the Character Palette it isn't a
matter of locating the diacritic but locating the character *combined* with
the diacritic.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Thanks micki & Chris. Yes, I know how to use the character palette,
but not how to combine the mark with the relevant letter i.e. get the
chosen diacritic (or whatever) to sit over the top of the letter to
which it relates. Any ideas?


micki wrote:
GridLok wrote:
Can anyone tell me how to apply diacretic marks to letters when
spelling words from a non-English language. I recently had to us some
names that had a mark like a small 'v' over some letters, but I
couldn't work out how to put them there

I believe it is "diacritic"...go to the menu >'insert">"symbols" and
you should have a choice under symbols tab, perhaps in the font you are
using, or go to the 'Special Characters' tab in same window and you
might be able to find something.

 

[CyberTaz]

The only problem I have now is, as has been for sometime, in Word, the
Keyboard Viewer will only display English (US), regardles of the input
menu displayed.

I'm not having that problem here. Although I don't know much about Greek
characters I turned on the Greek (polytonic) & the Keyboard Viewer updated
accordingly while in Word - the change wasn't immediate, however - I had to
press (coincidentally?) the Option Key before it updated the first time.
Since then, no problem.

The only fly in the ointment [I've found] is that a number of the keystrokes
conflict with Word's, so trying to get a $B&B(B (Cmd+Opt+S) results in a Split
Window as one example. A few others conflicted with the OS, so I almost
Logged myself out inadvertently, among a few other curiosities.

You might poke around in the Character Palette a bit more - some of the huge
Unicode fonts ,ay contain the characters you need. Otherwise you may have to
obtain a foreign language font that includes the necessary glyphs.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[GridLok]

Thanks Bob. Don't know what it is, the Keyboard Viewer appropriate to
the selected input menu, opens very briefly, but is immediately
overwritten by the English (US) version. I toyed with wiping Office
completely and re-installing, but I have a number of template documents
that I wouldn't want to lose ... and it might not fix the problem
anyway. It hasn't always been like this.

The only problem I have now is, as has been for sometime, in Word, the
Keyboard Viewer will only display English (US), regardles of the input
menu displayed.

I'm not having that problem here. Although I don't know much about Greek
characters I turned on the Greek (polytonic) & the Keyboard Viewer updated
accordingly while in Word - the change wasn't immediate, however - I had to
press (coincidentally?) the Option Key before it updated the first time.
Since then, no problem.

The only fly in the ointment [I've found] is that a number of the keystrokes
conflict with Word's, so trying to get a $B&B(B (Cmd+Opt+S) results in a Split
Window as one example. A few others conflicted with the OS, so I almost
Logged myself out inadvertently, among a few other curiosities.

You might poke around in the Character Palette a bit more - some of the huge
Unicode fonts ,ay contain the characters you need. Otherwise you may have to
obtain a foreign language font that includes the necessary glyphs.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello again - But for heaven's sake *don't* reinstall Office - it has
nothing to do with the operation of Keyboard Viewer or the Character
Palette. Those are OS X features.

There are 2 preferences files that sometimes get funky & may be the cause of
the misbehavior you're seeing. Go to your User/Library/Preferences folder &
remove them (don't delete as yet) then restart your Mac. That may very well
make the difference.

BTW - I'm assuming that OS X is fully updated (10.4.8, 10.3.9, whatever). If
not, do that *first* [or you might also reapply the update even if you have
already updated using Software Update] using the most current COMBO updater
from the Apple web site & make sure you Repair Disk Permissions before &
after doing so.

The suspect files are:

com.apple.KeyboardViewerServer.plist
com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Thanks Bob. Don't know what it is, the Keyboard Viewer appropriate to
the selected input menu, opens very briefly, but is immediately
overwritten by the English (US) version. I toyed with wiping Office
completely and re-installing, but I have a number of template documents
that I wouldn't want to lose ... and it might not fix the problem
anyway. It hasn't always been like this.

The only problem I have now is, as has been for sometime, in Word, the
Keyboard Viewer will only display English (US), regardles of the input
menu displayed.

I'm not having that problem here. Although I don't know much about Greek
characters I turned on the Greek (polytonic) & the Keyboard Viewer updated
accordingly while in Word - the change wasn't immediate, however - I had to
press (coincidentally?) the Option Key before it updated the first time.
Since then, no problem.

The only fly in the ointment [I've found] is that a number of the keystrokes
conflict with Word's, so trying to get a $B&B(B (Cmd+Opt+S) results in a Split
Window as one example. A few others conflicted with the OS, so I almost
Logged myself out inadvertently, among a few other curiosities.

Unfortunately they do not have
some that are used in the English transliteration of Slavic words (a
person's surname in this case). I've just looked under European
scripts in the Character Palette and there aren't any. Any idea how
they can be obtained?

You might poke around in the Character Palette a bit more - some of the huge
Unicode fonts ,ay contain the characters you need. Otherwise you may have to
obtain a foreign language font that includes the necessary glyphs.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac