Using symbol fonts

[stonecutter]

The much older Mac systems used to have an application called Key Caps for finding out the keyboard layout for all fonts. I need to know how to access the keyboard layout for fonts that do not have standard characters such as symbols and zapf dingbat fonts as well as non roman type alphabet fonts. Thanks for your assistance.
Stone Cutter

 

[A Friend]

This actually is more of a Mac OS question than a Word question, but...

In OS X there's a utility called the "Character Palette" that performs many of the same functions that used to be provided by the old KeyCaps app (many years ago..), although it's qite a bit more capable. You can find details on how to access it by using the Mac OS's Mac Help. Search on "Character Palette" (or even on "keycaps").

In Word, you can access and insert many special characters directly via the Object Palette. Click View > Object Palette and then click the Symbols tab (looks like a © character). You'll see most of the characters you might want to use right there, and they can be inserted into Word by just clicking.

Hope that helps.

 

[Stone Cutter]

Thanks for your reply, I have used the "Character Palette" often, but with some applications its "insert" feature does not work and even in word, the character can be lost in translation. Perhaps it does provide a way of displaying the keyboard layout for every font but I have not discovered it. I am working on a creative project where I need to access different characters for different alphabets say in cuniform or using chinese characters-if I had a visual layout of the keyboards I could easily type these words from the font library. I may need to visit the mac genius bar! I am sure there is a way to access this information in OSX.

Thanks Again.

Stone Cutter

 

[thg]

Perhaps it does provide a way of displaying the keyboard layout for every font but I have not discovered it.

It's important to understand that OS X and Word (starting with Word
2004) are now designed to operate in Unicode. Instead of switching
fonts that replace Latin with other characters, you can usually forget
the font and switch keyboard layouts in system prefs/international/
input menu. There is no keyboard layout for symbols and other
characters that do not relate to languages. For those you use the
Character Palette. To see which key does what in a keyboard layout,
you use Keyboard Viewer, which is also activated in system prefs/
international/input menu.

You may still be able to use apps in non-Unicode mode sometimes with
old non-Unicode symbol and other fonts, but Keyboard Viewer often will
not recognize these fonts.

Chinese and cuneiform have many more characters than could ever be
reached directly via the keyboard, and thus to input them one uses an
input method where multiple characters are typed to produce a single
ideogram. For the purpose of just displaying a few characters, the
Character Palette is the best approach.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

I realize it's sacrilegious to go outside the Apple/MSFT apps when they
contain the needed functionality ;-), but I have always preferred PopChar
(<http://www.macility.com/products/popcharx/>), and find it well worth the
money!

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>