To TYPE Unicode characters

[Mikael Persson]

Hi!

I use FrameMaker 8 on Windows XP.
I have scanned a two-volume Greek book and ran it through an OCR program. Not all of the transcription is correct, so I have to fix it. Some of the text is quoted from older books, so there's a lot of interesting combinations of diacritical marks, creating special characters. Most of them I have found in the font I use (Alkaios) and have no big trouble typing them with the corresponding key combinations.
Running charmap from the Run... field under Start I can see that also the rest of the characters are present in the Alkaios font. But I don't seem to find the combination of keys in FrameMaker to produce them (and probably those particular combinations are not implemented). And I can't use Alt+number, since that only works with ASCII characters, and the ones I'm after are far beyond those.
Searching the web, I found that what I'm supposed to type is U+number. The problem is that in any editor, typing a 'U' will present me with a 'U'. (Very logical and practical, since you sometimes also want to be able to type a 'U'!) Searching some more, I found that in for example OpenOffice the 'U' in the typing sequence should be translated as Ctrl+Shift (haven't tried it there, though), and I also found another editor in which it works that way. And in Word 2007 I actually CAN use Alt+number (the decimal numbers 0912 and 0944, in this case).
But in FM I can't use Alt+number, because I get a question mark or a ring, or something else. And I can't use Ctrl+Shift+number, because when I hit the zero key, FM tries to copy whatever is highlighted in the document (which i nothing, and hence FM protests).
As you've probably guessed by now, I would like to know what key combination (or other trick) I have to use to be able to somehow type or enter the special characters into my document? Or am I stuck with copy-and-paste from the charmap?

Regards, Mikael Persson!

[K***@adobeforums.com]

Yeah, I hate this Windows limitation. It's like they forgot to include
this very important functionality. I think Microsoft decided that since
there are so many possible character positions, no one would ever
memorize codes, but the truth is that I'm usually working with a fairly
small set of characters in my language du jour, 20 or 30 at most, and if
I have to input it more than twice, I'm going to learn the code.

In the past, I've used a free utility called Quick 100, found at

http://www.cardbox.com/quick.htm

I've not tried it with Framemaker.

[@adobeforums.com]

If you can find the character you require in the Windows "Character Map" utilty (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map), I think it should tell you its unicode character number, and you ought to be able to type this in directly as an ALT+.... sequence on your keypad. But reading your post carefully, I see you say this works for you in other Apps but not in FM - in which case, it sounds like a bug that should be reported to Adobe.
One workaround might be to get a stock of the characters you'll use a lot pasted into Notepad, and then copy-paste them out of there one at a time as required into Frame (tedious as hell, but better than nothing).

[K***@adobeforums.com]

Post by @adobeforums.com
and you ought to be able to type this in directly as an
ALT+.... sequence on your keypad.

Ought to, but can't.

Windows provides this functionality for ANSI and lower characters,
characters like §, which you can type into any Windows app as ALT 0167.

But for anything higher than Unicode (e.g., the fi ligature, U+FB01) the
only method that works in any app is to copy and paste from Character
Map. And just because you can copy it, doesn't mean the app will
recognize it when you paste. Notepad (at least in XP, I don't know about
Vista) isn't Unicode aware. Try pasting an fi ligature into Notepad. All
you get is a box.

FWIW, it's no more difficult to amass a series of characters on one line
in Character Map, choose the one you want, copy, and paste into Frame
than it is to do the same thing from Notepad (except that it works from
Character Map, and it only works from Notepad if they're ANSI characters).

[Mikael Persson]

Thank you Kenneth for Your reply. The Quick 100 You refer to is exactly the same that pops up when you run charmap (mentioned above). Oh well, they don't charge you for it, at least!

Regards, Mikael Persson!

[Mikael Persson]

Thank you too, David.
As you mention, it's tedious to copy and paste characters into a text. I haven't tried it from the charmap/Quick 100 application, but there also may be the problem with the size of the characters. I may have to mark them and choose 'Default font' to get it all correct.
Luckily, the 'missing' characters aren't used too often, so I think I'll just have to succumb. At first I thought that they were nowhere to find.

Regards, Mikael Persson!

[Mikael Persson]

I feel I have to add some clarification here. When I double-clicked on the icon of the running Quick 100 the Character Map opened up, and it seemed to be of no big deal. Now I have read the instructions ('Hold down the Alt key, press the decimal dot and then the hex code for the character.')
I'm sorry if I discouraged anyone.

Regards, Mikael Persson!

[@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth, I am running WinXP, and I can cut and paste unicode characters fine in and out of Notepad.
Also, I often can type them directly used ALT+keypad (using the character's decimal unicode number - not its hexadecimal one, obviously)

I'm wondering if this is a Windows configuration issue.

Have you tried going Start > Control Panel > Regional and Language Options, and checking that on the Languages tab,
you have "Supplemental language support" enabled (both checkboxes)
and if you click "Details" in the "Text services and input languages" panel , (which lauches its own Text Services and Input Languages" dialog, on the Advanced Tab there, you have "Extend support of advanced text services to all programs" checked?

Basically I suspect what these Windows settings to is "turn on/off unicode support for most programs and the windows clipboard"

[K***@adobeforums.com]

Thanks, David, this is new to me. I can now paste Unicode characters
into Notepad from Character Map. I can see an advantage to this (over
copying directly from Character Map): you would be able to save Unicode
text files with frequently-used characters for later copying and pasting
into Frame.

I can't get ALT+keypad functionality to work, but this may be because I
don't know how to convert hex to decimal. Using my previous example,
let's say I want to type an fi ligature (U+F001). The only way I know to
convert hex to decimal is the Windows Calculator. Input in hex, and then
change to decimal, and F001 becomes 61441. (There should be an easier
way to find that out...maybe there is.) So I should be able to type ALT
61441 (from the keypad) and get an fi ligature in Notepad. Instead it
shows me a happy face. I don't have FM8, so I can't test this there, but
in Indesign, ALT 61441 results in no character being input. In Word, I
*do* get an fi ligature.

[@adobeforums.com]

I think using the Windows calculator is a perfectly acceptable way to convert between hex and decimal :)

Here's another issue:
there are two stages to getting a unicode character to display: you have to specify the correct character, and then the font involved has to actually have a glyph for that character in it.

I expect, to put it rather anthropomorphically, it goes something like:
1. you type/paste the character
2. Application asks the font if it has a glyph for that character
3. If not, application asks operating system if it has a font that has that character
4. Once one is found, it gets displayed.

My hunch from what I've seen is that applications like Word, and most web-broswers these days, will liase with the Windows operating system until a font is found that has the necessary glyphs for the required characters.
However, some applications give up at step two: if, for example, your doc in some Adobe application is using Helvetica, and you ask for a very obscure unicode character, and Helvetica doesn't have a glyph for it, you may just get a blank square or "Missing character" symbol.

This used to also be the case with the Firefox browser - if I was writing a webpage and put in an obscure character, which wasn't present in default fonts like "Times New Roman" or "Verdana", I'd get a missing character symbol instead, even though my PC had other fonts which *did* have glyphs for that. I'd need to explicitly put "font="Arial Unicode" or sthg like that into the webpage to make it talk to windows to retrieve a glyph.
However, over the past couple of years, Firefox has stopped this and will just go get whatever glyphs it needs.

Perhaps programs like Frame and InDesign actually see this kind of behaviour as a virtue?

(All the above is totally speculative based on my own experience, mind you...)

[K***@adobeforums.com]

Post by @adobeforums.com
I think using the Windows calculator is a perfectly acceptable way to
convert between hex and decimal :)

Acceptable, sure. I'm just surprised there's not an easier way.

Post by @adobeforums.com
the font involved has to actually have a glyph for that
character in it.

Which is why I chose something ubiquitous to test this with: the fi
ligature. It's in most fonts, and it's definitely in Times New Roman and
Arial.

I just tried this again in Notepad, explicitly specifying Times New
Roman. When you type ALT 61441 in Notepad, do you get an fi ligature, or
something else?

[@adobeforums.com]

I get a sad face! ☺

[A***@adobeforums.com]

Jumping in late here.

There are at least five methods that can be used for entering unicode
values via the keyboard in Windows. If direct entry of the hex-values
via the numeric keypad isn't working then a Registry tweak is required
for your configurations.

An excellent, succinct reference on the five different methods is
available at:

http://www.fileformat.info/tip/microsoft/enter_unicode.htm