Another font question...

M

Marton

Registered
Why is it that OS X doesn't interpret special characters of fonts that work flawlessly in OS 9? For instance, the german a-umlaut is not reproducible in most fonts (apart from Times, but who wants to use that - except windoze users?). The unbreakable space is another example (it is viewable as normal on screen, but printouts as a small square). This is the most annoying situation to date. I am writing my thesis, and in no circumstances will I use Times!

Thanks,

M.
 
option+u then the letter always produces an umlauted (umläuted?) letter in OS X; swap i for u to get a circumflex (ˆ), e to get an accent mark (´), and the accent/tilde key to get a reverse accent mark (I know they have names, but if I put them here, people would just ask me what "accent grave" meant). Option+o will be give you ø; option+a will produce å. The Key Caps application (/Applications/Utilities/Key Caps) will show you on screen which keys do what; just launch it, depress keys or combinations of keys, and look at the screen to see what they do.
 
Ok. The problem is not in the OS, it's in Word. Microsoft, thank you once again. Stupidest app I know. Accentuated characters work in other text editors. But in Word, it doesn't. I tried your shortcuts, they dont work, simple. Since I use a Canadian keyboard, I switched to the US for your shortcuts and in Word, and only in Word, they don't work. If I choose Insert Symbols in the menu, that works but I won't do that everytime I need an accentuated character (I write in French and German!). Worse, the Symbol menu in words, complicated as it is, won't let me define a new shortcut for the accentuated character. For instance, for ê, it shows as a shortcut ,E ... What does that mean?

Word is buggy as hell. I love OS X. I like only one feature in word: the thesaurus with a right-click. But if I don't find a solution, in the dump it goes even with the money I paid.

Another bug wasting my time... When will this thing work just like OS 9?
 
HOLY FRUCKING SNIT! Are you trying to write your thesis in Word?!?!?!? Marton, I am not exaggerating when, as a fellow graduate student, I tell you this is the worst idea I've ever heard. Can you buy even an extremely inexpensive page layout program? I'm not suggesting you run out and buy InDesign 2.0, even though it's what I'm using and it ROCKS (purchases this big need planning; get the Design Collection if you must [$499.00 education]). I am a veterann of MANY a computer program, and Word topped out at version 5.1. If there is ANY way you can avoid using Word, I implore you to take it!
 
...this silly message board service converted my !=s to =s in my signature to left. If both of the above are =s, then they've done it in this post, too! When will the !=s (did they get me again?) get some justice?
 
Why don't I just throw out Word? Wait let me think why should I not... Nothing comes out... I think again... hhhnnnggg that's hard... no, can't find any reason to keep Word... In fact it's the shittiest app I got on my Mac, come to think of it...

Indesign, heh? Hmm. I have a grammar-and-word-dictionary as a standalone app, so that's settled...

All I need is a research subject for a grant... Then I can buy Indesign... philosophically speaking, that's not a problem...

Thanks for the advice...

BTW, I found out a workaround to get the accentuated character in Word: you type your accentuated character and, yes, the accent don't appear, but then you hit enter, then hit delete twice, and this seems to reset something and you get your shortcuts working... it's almost spooky...
 
I'm a bit of a patrician when it comes to software--I simply ponied up the $499.00 for the Adobe Design Collection (InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, and Photoshop). All are carbonized now and work great except Photoshop, which works great but is not yet recoded. Two weeks, two weeks... AppleWorks is a fine page layout program, but I couldn't really recommend it for a thesis. Does anyone know of a mid-level page layout program? I suppose Pagemaker, but I haven't seen that since before InDesign was first released, tho' I hear it's aging beautifully.
 
if your thesis has anything to do with mathematics, or plain technical writing?

Granted, it will not work very well (without a lot of programming) for literary, and probably not at all for pictorial works.
 
No tables needed, no special functions. Just plain text. But I think I will stick with Word, for compatibility with Endnote (I have a 2000+ bibliography in there) and with web databases. That's more important than fiddling with kerning...
 
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