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The keyboard page |
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Disclaimer: This site is managed by scholars in Medieval studies with the aim of establishing a consensus on the use of Unicode among medievalists. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Unicode. |
Most users of large Unicode fonts would like to access one or more characters which are not directly available on the keyboards for modern languages. That certainly applies to characters in the Private Use Area of the Unicode standard, but it also applies to characters that are located in seldom used code charts of the Unicode standard. This page explains how special characters may be inserted. It will focus on the need for people working with Medieval Nordic texts, but it should be of interest for other people, too.
In SGML / XML encoding all characters outside Basic Latin (US ASCII) may be encoded by entities, e.g. "á" for "á". No additional fonts or keyboard layouts are required, since all entities must be written in Basic Latin. The MUFI recommendation contains entities for all characters in the recommendation.
Using entities works fine when there are few special characters, but if there are many of them the actual typing will slow down considerably and make the file more difficult to read on screen. Moreover, manually typed entities are a huge source for errors.
Defining macros for the input of entities is a good way to simplify the actual typing, but not all applications offer this option. As applications vary greatly in the handling of macros, we refer you to the application's manual.
Working with a Operating System with Unicode support and a text editor with an installed MUFI font, special characters can be inserted directly in any file. This makes the file more easily readable and thereby helps to prevent mistakes.
MS Windows XP comes with a utility called "Character Map". With this utility, characters can be inserted simply by clicking on them in tables that are available in every application. It is located in "'Programmes'\'Accessories'\'System Tools'". In addition, many applications have an Insert Symbol option that in spite of its name also can be used for special characters. Most applications will also allow users to input characters by typing its Unicode value while holding down the alt key, e.g. alt+00FE for 'thorn'. (Note that in MSWord you have to enter characters by typing their respective Unicode number followed by alt plus x, e.g. "00FE", alt+x for 'thorn'.)
Mac OS X comes with a utility called "Character Palette". This utility enables users to enter characters by clicking on them in tables; it is available in all applications. It has to be activated by checking it among keyboard layouts in "'System Preferences...'/'International'/'Input Menu'". In the same location you can also activate "Unicode Hex Input", a standard U.S. keyboard that allows you to enter every character by typing its Unicode value while holding down the alt key, e.g. alt+00FE for 'thorn'.
A shareware programme that does a great job in helping people to insert special characters is PopChar, available both for Mac (PopChar Pro for OS 9 and PopChar X for OS X) and Windows OS (PopChar Win).
These solutions are perfectly acceptable if only a few special characters are needed. However, for extensive use of large Unicode fonts a customised keyboard is invaluable.
Modern operating systems allow users to select more than one keyboard layout. There is a wide range of pre-installed keyboard layouts to choose from.
In Mac OS X go to "'System Preferences...'/'International'/'Input Menu'"; check the boxes of the layouts you want to have available. The Icelandic keyboard layout is recommended, since it facilitates the typing of normalised Old Norse texts (with the exception of "o ognek"). The "U.S. Extended" keyboard is also recommended since it contains many "dead keys" that allow users to combine many different diacritics.
You may also want to choose the options "Show Keyboard Viewer" (assisting in finding and memorising the insertion of special characters) and "Show Character Palette" (see 2).
In MS Windows XP go to "Control Panels" from the "Start"-Menu; open "Regional and Language Options"; choose the "Languages" tab; click on "Details" in the "Text Services and input languages". Choose one or more keyboard layouts.
For changing keyboard layouts quickly, you may want to activate the "Language Bar" on the desktop.
There are a lot of keyboard layouts available on the web, facilitating the input of diacritical characters (for Mac OS X cf. http://www.redlers.com/downloadkeyboard.html).
To the best of my knowledge, no layouts have been designed specifically for Medieval Nordic texts. The keyboard layouts below may therefore be of some interest for people working in this field.
The Menota handbook ch. 3 defines three levels of transcription of Medieval Nordic primary sources. The normalised level is well covered (though not completely) by the standard Icelandic keyboard layout. The two other levels, the facsimile and the diplomatic levels, require a larger inventory of characters than found in any standard keyboard layout.
The keyboard layouts below are developed for transcription on both levels, the facsimile as well as the diplomatic level. They do not include all characters in the MUFI recommendation, but a selection chosen with regard to frequency in actual manuscripts and consistency of the arrangement.
The layouts are made as similar as possible for Mac and Windows OS. Thus, scholars transcribing on different platforms should not face too many difficulties. Layouts can be downloaded from these pages:
Keyboards for Mac OS X (requires OS 10.2 or later)
Keyboard for Mac OS 9
Keyboard for Windows 2000 and XP
Remember that it is always possible to combine different ways of input. For example, if a certain character is unavailable in the keyboard layout you are using, it can be entered in any of the ways described in section (2) above.
Note that many older systems can not handle Unicode characters and thus may not be able to read files using them. Because of this and for better long-term stability, it may be advisable to convert [forthcoming link] your files to pure ASCII when finished.
It is strongly advisable that the final file uses one consistent encoding.
Created 10 December 2004. Last update 14 December 2004.