Phonetic symbols typing

[Picsou1981]

Hi,

I'm looking for a quick and easy way to insert the 20ish phonetic symbols
and other special characters I commonly use. I find the conventional methods
(insert menu or keyboard shortcuts) inconvenient. Can u suggest a better (and
free) solution ?

Best regards.

 

[grammatim]

_Somewhere_ I saw a downloadable Phonetics keyboard; linked from one
of the Unicode Fonts websites, but I don't think it would be more
convenient to be constantly switching between keyboards vs. assigning
20 or so easily remembered keyboard shortcuts -- I've systematically
done it for the dozens of accented letters I need to use, and when I
find myself typing a great deal of phonetics, I'm sure I'll do so for
those letters, too.

For instance, for any macronned letter, my code is Ctrl-Alt-hyphen,
letter. For phonetic symbols, I think I'd do Ctrl-Alt-p, a (for script-
a), Ctrl-Alt-p, e (for epsilon), etc. (I already use Ctrl-Shift-@, e
for shwa, because of the ASCII convention of @ for shwa.)

 

[Picsou1981]

Thxs, Grammatim.

I think the best solution would be to install a virtual keyboard that I
could customize with the symbols I use the most. I saw something like this
called Tavultesoft Keyman, but a) there's a fee and b) I'm not sure it's
enirely customizable.

Well, I'm still looking for solutions.

B. R.

 

[grammatim]

I've never come across a TavulteSoft product that was sold for profit!

I still say it's a lot more disruptive and tedious to switch keyboards
for one or two characters at a time than to invent shortcuts for each
of the symbols you're going to use.

I don't know, but I expect, that when you're on the phonetic keyboard
you can't easily type the plain letters but have to switch back.