Greek Keyboards

[Louis L Sorenson]

I use Tavultesoft Keyman, but I just found this one on the web.

Sibylla, a tool for typing ancient Greek in Windows http://recursos.cnice.mec.es/latingrieg ... plap17.htm

[RandallButh]

Students, readers, and teachers, should all be reminded that both Windows and Mac have
Greek and Hebrew keyboards already installed in their operating systems.
They only need to be turned on (activated). Naturally, both of them follow the national
typewriter keyboard standards, the Greek typewriter for Greek and the Hebrew typewriter
for Hebrew.

Vowels and accent marks are slightly different for Windows and Mac but have
considerable overlap.

The advantage of learning to touchtype according to the national keyboard is that one may
then type Greek or Hebrew on any standard computer, anywhere in the world, including
Greece and Israel.

[Jonathan Robie]

Most modern Linux distributions also include these keyboards.

[Nigel Chapman]

I've always preferred to type using a variant of betacode, a la http://typegreek.com -- but after taking the time to adjust to the OS layouts I'm finding them increasingly natural. However, I can't find an accurate keyboard layout diagram to add here.

[Devenios Doulenios]

Hi Randall,

Can you display the installed Greek keyboard for Windows onscreen? I know how to do this on our Mac (Keyboard Viewer app), but what I read in the Help files for Windows seemingly only applies to showing English keyboards.

If you or another B-Greeker could tell me how to do this in Win XP, that would be great.

Εὐχαριστῶ σοι, ὦ φίλε μου!

Δεβένιος Δουλένιος

[NathanSmith]

If you or another B-Greeker could tell me how to do this in Win XP, that would be great.

I'm not on XP right this second, but these instructions should work.

[Shirley Rollinson]

I tried several keyboards, but have settled for now for just using the "insert symbol" option of MSWord with Times New Roman as the usual Unicode font.
I set up the shortcuts for Greek polytonic, with ALT + key (setting up alpha on the "a" key etc.) and using the numeric keys for characters with breathings (eg. lowercase - smooth breathing; uppercase - rough breathing, 1 for iota, 2/@ for alpha, with iota subscripts on the 890 keys, rho + rough breathing on the `
I also had enough spare keys to assign Latin macrons to a group of keys. For polytonic characters beyond what I use in general typing I still use the "insert symbol" dialog box (for which I assigned a shortcut) and add them that way. One can get quite a good speed of typing holding one finger on the ALT and using the rest for the keyboard - except that one has to lift off it when typing a space. For some reason Microspft has pre-empted ALT + "space" and one can't assign it to anything but what microsoft wants That's the only drawback so far.

[Nigel Chapman]

I've always preferred to type using a variant of betacode, a la http://typegreek.com -- but after taking the time to adjust to the OS layouts I'm finding them increasingly natural. However, I can't find an accurate keyboard layout diagram to add here.

I see Jonathan Robiue has elsewhere posted exactly the diagram I had been looking for...

Greek Polytonic on Linux Systems:



viewtopic.php?t=759&p=4293

[RandallButh]

I'm not a Linux user so it was interesting to see a Linux layout.

Unfortunately, I didn't see the psili/daseia (breathing) key. On Mac and PC it is the [ ' " ] key.
Perhaps there is an updated Linus keyboard, or I missed something.

Also, Shirley's comments on keyboards didn't clarify whether or not she was using the Greek national keyboard previously. It appears not. When the Windows Greek Polytonic keyboard is activated a person can toggle between a first keyboard and a Greek Polytonic keyboard by {alt+shift}. Very simple, and only once for the language switch.

Again, the Greek national keyboard is available on computers all over the world and it would make sense to have newcomers start there. Furthermore, inside a document in Word, the Tools-Options-Edit settings can be set so that automatic keyboard switching is enabled. Then, when the cursor is placed in Greek text the keyboard automatically switches to Greek for further writing. When the cursor is placed on English text the keyboard automatically switches to English. The same is true for any activated keyboards and texts that a person may have in a doc (Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, etc.). The keyboard switches to the language of the text of the cursor. Alt-Shift will cycle through various activated keyboards (1 2 3 4 ... 1 2 3 4 ... 1 2 3 4 καὶ τὰ λοιπά) should multiple input keyboards be activated on the same computer.

[Jonathan Robie]

Unfortunately, I didn't see the psili/daseia (breathing) key. On Mac and PC it is the [ ' " ] key.
Perhaps there is an updated Linus keyboard, or I missed something.

You need the instructions along with the keyboard layout. Breathing is fully supported.