macrons in Word 2004

[Sharon Domier]

Hi,
I use Word on Windows 2000 at work and the PC version allows me to Insert
-> Symbol -> Macron o. We use the macron to indicate a long sound when
romanizing Japanese. It is also used in Hawaiin, Maori, and other languages.

For the life of me I cannot find the macron in the Mac version. I have the
Student-Teacher version of Office:Mac 2004.

Some of my acquaintenances are importing special fonts to deal with the
situation, but it makes no sense to me that the PC version has something
that the Mac version doesn't.

Am I missing something? Does anyone on the list have a reasonable
workaround?

Sharon Domier

 

[matt neuburg]

Hi,
I use Word on Windows 2000 at work and the PC version allows me to Insert
-> Symbol -> Macron o. We use the macron to indicate a long sound when
romanizing Japanese. It is also used in Hawaiin, Maori, and other languages.

For the life of me I cannot find the macron in the Mac version. I have the
Student-Teacher version of Office:Mac 2004.

Oooooh, oooooh, call on me, teacher, call on me!!!! Sorry, I'll calm
down now. But I do happen to know the answer to this one, and the fact
that this is now possible (and easy) is one of the most important
improvements in Word 2004 for Mac.

Okay, first, choose Apple Menu -> System Preferences, go into the
International pane, and in the Input Menu tab, make sure that Character
Palette is checked in the scrolling list and that Show Input Menu... is
checked at the bottom of the window.

Now, while you are in Word, choose Show Character Palette from the
"flag" menu at the right of the menu bar (near the clock if you have you
a clock in the menu bar). Switch the View to Unicode if necessary and
choose Latin Extended-A on the left. You will see macron-o on the right;
select it and click Insert.

If you are going to do this sort of thing a lot, I can teach you another
way where you can type the character directly. In the Input Menu tab,
check the US Extended entry. Now in Word choose US Extended from the
"flag" menu and just leave it there. You have now changed your keyboard
layout. Everything will behave normally, but (here's what's different)
when you want a macron-o you type option-a and then o. You can customize
this behavior at system level (i.e. determine exactly what key
combinations enter macron-o) by installing a different keyboard layout,
but you should find the default US Extended behavior good enough for
now. m.

PS To learn more about how the US Extended keyboard layout works, enable
Keyboard Viewer and choose *that* from the flag menu. It shows you what
the option key does.

 

[Tom G]

For the life of me I cannot find the macron in the Mac version.

You make macrons in Word 2004 the same way you make them in
any Unicode-savvy OS X app: Select the US Extended Keyboard, hit
Option-A, and then the vowel you want. Or you can use the Character
Palette.

 

[Timothy J. Luoma]

it makes no sense to me that the PC version has something
that the Mac version doesn't.

The Mac versions and the Windows versions will always have features that
are not available in the other, I'm sure.

I, for one, am always surprised when the Mac version has something that
the PC version doesn't have, but never surprised when it is the other way
around.

TjL