Doug wrote: > Bob Proulx wrote: > > input. But then the follow-up came back that they wanted to input the > > bar characters āēīōū. And I don't see how to input bar characters > > with the above. > > > > Because now I know that specifically they want to input the barred > > characters āēīōū what would be possible methods to type those in that > > I should recommend to them? > > How did you create those characters in the email? And why wouldn't that > work on their system? I did a cut and paste from their email. I don't know how they entered them. Probably by cutting and pasting them. :-) > BTW: The Debian system may have the capability to set up a compose key-- > one that will allow you to type accented characters like in French, > Spanish, German, etc., with looking up those U+xxxx characters. But > I don't think it can do what you call bar characters. The AltGR worked to type in European characters. But apparently it is not set up for the Latin bar characters. > The only time I have run into those odd-ball bar characters--the > bar is called a "macron"--is in schoolboy Latin, where the Romans > never heard of them! And the Latin used in Catholic Church liturgies > never used the macrons either. Only Latin teachers, to make the > difficult even more so! That's it! I didn't realize it initially but this person teaches Latin at the local k12 school. And so now we know that these are literally Latin characters. > Medieval scribes used something similar as a means of abbreviation, > so as to take less time copying texts. A bar over a vowel meant that > the letters that would normally follow were being omitted. Used for > the Latin endings, where someone familiar with the language could > figure out what was intended. Excellent information! Thanks for supplying it. I found it interesting. I have the misfortune of never having learned Latin. And so now knowing this is for Latin input I can clarify the question. What is the best way to set them up for keyboard input of Latin characters? Go the compose key route? Or dead keys? Or other? Or perhaps use AltGr for most things and then have a keyboard macro for the unique bar characters? Probably in OpenOffice or LibreOffice but perhaps for a web browser and so perhaps in the X system somehow. This person is using XFCE. Thanks, Bob
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature