I don't expect to get too much sympathy here, but I just picked up a version of Office for my Mac, and I need some help. I used to use OpenOffice, and I'm in the process of converting those files to Word files...but my problem is this: I've taken a few Latin classes...so a lot of my documents have characters with accents on them. And I can't seem to find the right accents in Word. Word DOES have an "insert symbol" option with SOME accented letters, but the accent i need isn't one of the slanted bars, it's just a long-mark. Like a hyphen over the letter. It certainly SHOULD be in word SOMEWHERE but I don't know how i'd go about hunting it down. If anyone can help me out, I'd appreciate it. Thanks for the help, everyone.
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special characters in Microsoft Word?
- Thread starter absurdio
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I am not sure, but I recall Word allowing you to do Option and the letter and it gives some accent on it, it might change if you use shift or ctrl with it. I will try it tonight and let you know.
If you go to Edit>Special Characters... under Finder, it pulls up a character map and from there if you select "Accented Latin" you will have access to that particular accent mark, but I believe you can only copy and paste as I am unable to figure out if there is a keyboard shortcut that can be used for them. You can save them to a "favorites" category for quicker reference, though.
Hm. I admit to being kindof inept at this, but I can't seem to find "Special Characters" in Finder or in Word...
I'm under Panther, and it's under the "Edit" which is next to "File" which is next to the Apple menu.
i don't have much experience with word for the mac (i justuse AW) but i know in word for windows you type ctrl+', then let go, and press the letter you want accented for just standard accents on vowels. there are loads of other shortcuts. do a search in the help file for "international symbols." i would imagine that there is an easier way to do it than inserting symbols every single time. you might even be able to define your own shortcuts.
Is that feature new to Panther, perhaps? I'm living in the stone-ages of Jaguar and all I don't seem to have "Special Characters" either under Word's Edit menu or under Finder's. Maybe that's an addition thanks to Font Book (which doesn't exist in Jaguar) ?
Go into system preferences and check out the International option. There is an option in there somewhere to use the character palette which should work for special characters.
You, sir, are a wonder. Character palette has got it, and it looks like it'll work. So once again, thanks a bunch. The day is saved.
*sigh* i spoke too soon. Character Palette does, in fact, have the characters I need, but when i select them, the "Insert" option goes gray and inactive. I can't copy and paste them, I can't insert them, and I can't seem to get the character into my document at all. For what it's worth, "macron" would have been a much better description of the accent I need than the one I offered before. Doesn't it seem suspicious that Word wouldn't offer that? I mean it seems like something that's fundemental enough, at least, that it shouldn't be omitted completely...
Word X doesn't support Unicode. That's why you cannot use the accented characters. Even if you get a Word document from Windows users, you will lose all the Unicode characters. Word 2004 for Mac will (finally) support Unicode, so you will have to wait till June. You could also switch back to OpenOffice/NeoOffice or try out KOffice which is already available in a native Mac OS X version here .
Word doesn't have the character you are looking for, I played around this morning, no luck. I guess we will have to wait for Office 2004.
As PowerBookG5 said, check out the System Preferences -> International -> Input Menu and enable "Keyboard Viewer."
You'll get a new menu with an American flag. Then select "Show Keyboard Viewer" and you'll have what once was KeyCaps, an app like Windows' Character Map. From there, you can hold down option and see special characters. The ones with the white borders are symbols that you can choose and then the next letter you type will have that symbol.
This is assuming you have Panther. Otherwise, just look for the application KeyCaps, should be in the Utilities folder under versions up to Jaguar.
cpjakes
You'll get a new menu with an American flag. Then select "Show Keyboard Viewer" and you'll have what once was KeyCaps, an app like Windows' Character Map. From there, you can hold down option and see special characters. The ones with the white borders are symbols that you can choose and then the next letter you type will have that symbol.
This is assuming you have Panther. Otherwise, just look for the application KeyCaps, should be in the Utilities folder under versions up to Jaguar.
cpjakes
You might look for fonts that are recommended for use with Latin and then add it to your computer. Then it would be added to Word and you could use it. I use Hobogirin for sanskrit and the like, which requires lots of diacritics, if that helps at all.
For the homework due today what I did was this: did most of the work in Word and then added the necessary accents in OpenOffice. I actually really like Open Office (at least usually). The one major thing I have against it is that, since it runs off of XDarwin, it doesn't interact with the rest of the OS. That rules out actions like cutting and pasting from one application to another...and...that's something I do quite a bit. For the moment, I suppose I can keep using both apps, one to compose and another to add accents, but I'll be REALLY disappointed if those accents just aren't an option in Word.
Next,
Hm. That sounds possible. Where and how did you find Hobogirin? How would I find an equivalent for Latin (or even for English editing, which also demands macrons)?
And, finally:
Also, i tried KeyCaps, but there too, no macron. There are a couple of other accent options, but no plain macron. Frustrating.
Next,
Hm. That sounds possible. Where and how did you find Hobogirin? How would I find an equivalent for Latin (or even for English editing, which also demands macrons)?
And, finally:
Also, i tried KeyCaps, but there too, no macron. There are a couple of other accent options, but no plain macron. Frustrating.
The thing is, the macrons are not a part of the original Latin language, but in fact, added by translators to assist in learning and speaking the language. My teacher never cared for them so we rarely used them, but then again, I always wrote out my Latin homework on paper. It's odd that a massive program like Word won't do macrons, though, especially when a program as basic as TextEdit uses them perfectly. Perhaps you can just use that instead to type out your homework since it supports unicode, it's integrated with the OS, and it's built into OS X to begin with (meaning it's free).
You're very right. The occurrances of these macrons aren't all that great; we use them only in very rare, distinct cases, just like you said. However, it'd be nice to be able to include them when I need to. Last semester I did all my homework out by hand, but, as I'm quicker at typing than I am at writing, I figured I may as well give this a shot. Does anyone know of any third-party download, perhaps, that'd allow Word to support unicode? I mean I don't know anything about it, and that's probably a stretch...but if nothing else, I'll just start using text edit. I just have to wonder what the hell the Word programmers were thinking (that's hardly a first, come to think of it...).
Seems like the one he wants is a Unicode character, which Office v. X has terrible support for.
Bright side is, you can open Word docs in TextEdit in Panther, so you can add those characters later on in TextEdit. Also, those characters will be supported on Office XP and newer (maybe even Office 2k) on the PC side, so you can save the accents from TextEdit and then PC users will see them fine.
Unicode and Word
Word X does not support Unicode, and there's no plugin available that adds this functionality. You will have to wait till Office 2004 comes out in June.
However, you should really switch from OpenOffice X11 to NeoOffice/J with the latest patch applied. NeoOffice/J is another version of OpenOffice that uses Java instead of X11. It looks and behaves the same, but it has two big advantages compared to OpenOffice. You can copy and paste to other applications and you can use all fonts available in Mac OS X.
You can download NeoOffice/J here and then you should follow these instructions.
Word X does not support Unicode, and there's no plugin available that adds this functionality. You will have to wait till Office 2004 comes out in June.
However, you should really switch from OpenOffice X11 to NeoOffice/J with the latest patch applied. NeoOffice/J is another version of OpenOffice that uses Java instead of X11. It looks and behaves the same, but it has two big advantages compared to OpenOffice. You can copy and paste to other applications and you can use all fonts available in Mac OS X.
You can download NeoOffice/J here and then you should follow these instructions.
I had the same problem with macrons. Word X does not support unicode; neither does AppleWorks. But here is what you want, Mellel 1.7:
http://www.redlers.com/
Mellel is the best word processor for Mac there is. Actually, it is an application made especially for scholars and linguists. Check it out. It will do everything you need and then some.
http://www.redlers.com/
Mellel is the best word processor for Mac there is. Actually, it is an application made especially for scholars and linguists. Check it out. It will do everything you need and then some.
...every day I get closer and closer to finally updating to OS X 10.3, I promise. =)
Does anyone know if using OpenOffice with X11 will allow for copy/pasting between applications?
ThomasW's post says NeoOffice will do that, which would be great. But is NeoOffice in anything like stable condition? And while i'm at it, how much like OpenOffice is NeoOffice?
thanks again for the help, everyone.
...I'm looking forward to ridding my machine of the stain that is MS Office.
Does anyone know if using OpenOffice with X11 will allow for copy/pasting between applications?
ThomasW's post says NeoOffice will do that, which would be great. But is NeoOffice in anything like stable condition? And while i'm at it, how much like OpenOffice is NeoOffice?
thanks again for the help, everyone.
...I'm looking forward to ridding my machine of the stain that is MS Office.
Basically it's only real easy to do the option- ` e u i n plus the letter. ì í ï î ñ
But when the accent mark isn't the 'supported' type it's a pain, unless it's a psuedo-supported bug in MS Office.
Unless one of the other keyboard maps that Apple supports includes the e with the little bar on top.
But when the accent mark isn't the 'supported' type it's a pain, unless it's a psuedo-supported bug in MS Office.
Unless one of the other keyboard maps that Apple supports includes the e with the little bar on top.
but OpenOffice with XDarwin has that accent.
does that mean OpenOffice with X11 won't have it? that seems kinda silly.
does that mean OpenOffice with X11 won't have it? that seems kinda silly.
NeoOffice 0.8 is by now very stable. I use it every day. You don't need a patch anymore, just download it here. It works with Mac OS X 10.2, too.
NeoOffice is just like OpenOffice 1.0.3 (same features, same menus, etc.). You can install NeoOffice and OpenOffice at the same time, there are no conflicts.
Unfortunately, NeoOffice is a bit slower than OpenOffice/X11, but it's certainly usable.
EDIT: By the way, the author of NeoOffice/J states that NeoOffice is not yet complete enough to be used for real work. That's no longer true. The author just hasn't updated his page yet.