I also have pictures of the keyboard layout there. I explain the iota subscript combinations in the instruction document. If you want to accent a letter (evening after selecting a breathing mark) simply remember that shift + your vowel is the acute, alt+ctrl (or right alt) + your vowel is the grave, and all three shift+alt+ctrl (or shift+right alt) + your vowel makes the circumflex. If you want a letter to have a breathing mark simply type ‘q’ first for your smooth breather and ‘Q’ for your rough breather. It runs within your operating system so you can use in anywhere in your system (in any program). I have found that is the easiest system for typing all of the diacritical marks while typing Greek. If you have any Windows operating system I hope you have chosen to use my (John Schwandt’s) EZAccent Windows keyboard. Windows EZAccent Polytonic Greek Keyboard – Hear a couple ways of typing in Greek polytonic Unicode. Remember if you send an email or write a web page with a font that their viewer doesn’t have, it won’t display properly. If you are sending an email or publishing on the web, the most widely available polytonic Greek Unicode font is Palatino Linotype. Note: Always make sure that your font is a font that supports polytonic Greek Unicode characters. Make sure the “Show input menu in menu bar” box (in the lower left of the window) is checked.Īfter adding Greek to your operating system and installing the keyboard you are ready to start typing in Greek Polytonic Unicode.In the “Language & Text” window that will open, click on the Input Menu button/tab.In the “system preferences” window that will open, click on the International icon.Further down on this web page are tips for typing in Greek.
Click on the keyboard viewer to see which keys produce which letters and accents (Pressing shift changes the contents of the viewer).Select the Greek flag to switch your keyboard to a Greek Unicode keyboard.Click on the flag to see a drop down menu with a Greek flag.Close the windows and now you should see a US flag in your menu bar (upper right).Make sure the “Show input menu in menu bar” box (in the lower right of the window) is checked.Make sure the “keyboard & character viewer” box is checked as well.In the “Language & Text” window that will open, click on the Input Sources button/tab.In the “system preferences” window that will open, click on the Language & Text icon.On the drop-down menu select System Preferences.Click on the apple symbol in the the upper left of tool bar.There is a quick summary below in the Typing in Unicode Greek section. Please read my instruction document ( Greek_Polytonic_Easy_Accent_Instructions.pdf) explaining how the keyboard works.
See Greek Font Links and Downloads for a list of free Unicode fonts and where to get more. Simply press Alt+Shift to switch between English and Greek keyboards and make sure that you are using a unicode font like Palatino Linotype, Minion Pro, Gentium etc. You will see a confirmation window once the keyboard is installed.
Windows Operating Systems – Download John Schwandt’s EZAccent Keyboard EZAccent.zip
The following is how to step up a Greek polytonic keyboard on each of these systems. However, I have created a remedy keyboard for Windows systems called EZAccent and have it freely available for you below (as long as this site remains the only place to download it – I may find some slight improvement tweaks in the future and don’t want multiple versions confusing people.) I have not yet figured out how to do the same thing for Mac’s but its native system is sufficient. The result is that windows has a key for each possible accent, breather and subscript combination. Mac operating systems allow for multiple dead key combinations (select breathing, select accent, select subscript and then finally select a letter) and Windows systems only allow for a single dead key. Currently Apple’s Mac has a notable edge for typing polytonic Greek in Unicode when comparing their normal accenting systems. Installation of mutlilanguage support and keyboard layout for GreekĪll operating systems are not created equal.