Aĉĉented letters without download

Use "Shortcut Keys" to solve the mystery of how to easily display the Esperanto special letters using Microsoft Word, without any downloading whatsoever.
Netscape users: If you see question marks (??) on your screen when viewing the following -- Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ -- the problem might disappear if you click "Back", allow the previous webpage to appear, then click "Forward". If you succeed, Netscape will show Esperanto's accented letters and allow you to print them on paper. Surprisingly, Internet Explorer 6.0 sometimes leaves the accents off when printing.
Shortcut Keys set-up: First of all, would-be users have the easy task of setting up "keystroke shortcuts", as follows:-
  1. Open Microsoft® Word© 2000, or 97.
  2. Point with the Mouse Cursor to the Menu Bar near the top. Click:Insert / Symbol / (Symbols)
  3. Ensure that in the Dialogue Box thus revealed the "Font" shows "(normal text)", and that the Scroll Bar is at the top.
  4. On the bottom line (in Word 2000 if the scroll bar is at the top) of letters, fourth from the left, click the capital circumflexed Ĉ. (In Word 97, it is second from the left.)
  5. Click [Shortcut Key]. Ensure that the "Save changes in" is being assigned to "Normal.dot". (Advanced users might do differently.)
  6. Simultaneously press Alt + Shift + C
  7. Click [Assign]. This will assign that keyboard shortcut to capital C circumflex, i.e., Ĉ.
  8. Click [Close].
    (Assign next character)
  9. Insert / Symbol / Symbols.
  10. Find the small circumflexed ĉ , and click it.
  11. Click [Shortcut Key].
  12. Simultaneously press Alt + c. Click [Assign]. Click [Close].
   And so on, right through to Ŭ and ŭ -- with breves ( ˘ ) -- it is not worth inventing a variant keystroke sequence just because a breve is different to a circumflex, in my opinion.
Here are popular fonts that will accept the Esperanto accents:-  
Arial Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ
Comic Sans MS Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ
Courier New Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ
Georgia Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ
Monotype Corsiva Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ
Times New Roman   Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ
Verdana Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ
   Fonts which attractively accept the accents include:- Arial, Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Andale Mono, Book Antiqua, Bookman Old Style, Century Gothic, Century Schoolbook, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Garamond, Georgia, Haettenschweiler, Impact, Lucida Console, Lucida Sans Unicode, Monotype Corsiva, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Verdana, and Verdana Ref.
©30 Nov 2001, 2004 John Massam, 46 Cobine Way, Greenwood (a suburb of Perth), W.A., 6024, Australia. Tel.: +61 ( 0 ) 8  9343 9532, 0408 054 319. E-mail: john.massam@multiline.com.au
Doc. 231.   Internet Address = http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/nofonts.htm

   Fonts that do NOT accept the accents attractively include:- Algerian, Arioso, Bauhaus 93, Blackadder ITC, Bradley Hand ITC, Brush Script MT,Cornet, Edwardian Script IT, Forte, Freestyle Script, French Script MT. Gigi, HandStroke, Harlow Solid Italic, Informal Roman, Jokerman, Kunstler Script, Lucida Calligraphy, Lucida Handwriting, Matura MT Script Capitals, Mistral (mal-alloge cghjsu), Palace Script MT , Pristina, Rage Italic, Ravia, Scogin, Script MT Bold, Tempus Sans ITC, Viner Hand ITC.
   LOSSES: This method removes four standard keyboard shortcuts, namely:
  • Alt + C to close a pane. Closing a pane can be done by clicking the [X] box at top right, or pressing [Alt] + [F4], or closing the icon at the foot of the screen.
  • Alt + G which opens Go menu. Go is opened mostly by clicking Go button.
  • Alt + H which opens Help. Help is opened mostly by clicking "Help" or tapping [F1] key.
  • Alt + Capital U which Updates Fields. Updating Fields (seldom required) can sometimes be done by Selecting the required words, and Right Clicking, then clicking "Update Fields".
       B. Using the system.
    When typing a word such as "aĉeti," all you have to do is to hold down [Alt] and type "c" to get the ĉ. If a capital Ĉ is required, hold down the [Alt] plus [Shift] keys before pressing the C. Enjoy!
       In past years Esperantists had invented programmes and devised special Esperanto fonts, but now the need for these is ZERO because of the improving technology.
       The International Language can now be publicised as a practical tongue, no longer requiring time-consuming knowledge of typefaces and computer applications in order to render it correctly on paper.

    Ĉĉ Ĝĝ Ĥĥ Ĵĵ Ŝŝ Ŭŭ


       The new information I received on 28 December 2001 after e-mailing the well-known Professor and author John Wells of England showed that translators Dermod Quirke and Brian Holser of Halifax, north England, in the article "The easy way to type foreign alphabets and accented letters in MS Word" dated 1 July 2001, suggested using the AutoCorrect system, under which Esperanto, which has only six accented letters (ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ), is given the codes \c\, \g\ and so on, to produce ĉ, ĝ etc.
       They recommend: "When you create an AutoCorrect code, it should always be lower case (small letters). But then, when you use the code in a document, type it in lower case if you want a small letter, but in upper case if you want a capital."
       People who want special letters in a few different languages ought to consider adopting the AutoCorrect system. Read: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/Eureka.doc
       Shortcut Keys for Esperanto: Professor Wells stated that for the past eighteen months or more he had been telling people the same message as I started doing soon after I discovered how to use Word's inbuilt capacity to easily produce accented letters by the Shortcut Key method. A lecture handout of his entitled "Multlingveco kaj la interreta revolucio" (in Esperanto) and dated 3 November 2001 is on this website at verona-folio.doc advocating the Shortcut Key [Alt] + c method.
       Perhaps you would like to occasionally use words made from unique alphabets such as Greek Ω θ Ξ λ ζ έ, Russian and Serbian Ж Д Щ, Hebrew and Yiddish gimel ג, beth ב, aleph א, and Arabic ta ت, ba ب, alif ا   You can do this and much more, if you study the "Symbols" section in the Symbol dialogue box plus the "Special Characters" section for such characters as © ® ™ £ €. Both sections are accessed by clicking "Insert", then "Symbol".
  • א ב ג , ا ب ت

       ¿ Do you know that a few minutes study will empower you to easily type (almost as a matter of course) the French, Italian, etc. grave, acute, and circumflex letters, for example, è é ê, and the Spanish tilde, ñõ? Ånd you wøn't need a lot of training to type some Swedish, Gërmän, and Čzech. Some of these can be done on Word 97, as well as Word 2000.
       BACKGROUND: Ever since the personal computer became popular, the majority of machines either could not produce Esperanto's accented letters in word-processing, or could only produce them by difficult methods.
       Esperanto webmasters had known that in recent years Unicode could put the special letters onto webpages, therefore they suspected that the accented letters must have been "inside" the computer systems somewhere.
       By investigation, on 30 November 2001 I thought I had discovered the "secret" of producing Esperanto letters easily in Microsoft Word 2000, using Windows 98. The six special letters can be keyboarded while typing, without requiring special fonts, special programmes, or annoying code tables. Word 97 will do French accents, GANM told me by e-mail on 17 Dec 01.
       However, two previous explanations of how to easily produce accented letters, using the inbuilt power of Word, from Word 97 onwards, became known to me by e-mail from Prof. John C. Wells, London, dated 28 December 2001.
       I would appreciate anyone sending me information about easy methods to produce accented letters in word-processing with Apple Macintosh, Linux and other Operating Systems, as well as with the StarOffice suite. -- JOHN MASSAM, Greenwood, Western Australia.
       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
    • Prof. John Wells, England, http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/html-ttt/uniktest.htm for (now somewhat outdated) Unicode information, http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/dia/supersignoj2.htm for the proposed Esperanto word "bovlo" (breve, "ronda hoketo"), and http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm for updated wide-ranging Unicode facts.
    • Facts were checked in HTML Complete, Brenda Frink and Michael Anderson (eds.), 1999, San Francisco, Sybex http://www.sybex.com pp 957-65.
    • Microsoft Word 2000's Symbols and Special Characters dialogue box.
    • Windows 98's Character Map.
    • Reference was made to material Copyright © International Organization for Standardization 1986, and to The Unicode Standard 3.0, Copyright © 1991-2000, Unicode™, Inc., http://www.unicode.org   (Unicode identifies each character by a hexadecimal number, that I converted into a decimal number for use on the webpage version. Thanks to Gerard A. N. Massam and JW I now know that the hexadecimal number, if preceded by an "x", will work for webpages just like the decimal numbers. Example: Ŭ gives the same result as Ŭ, namely Ŭ.)
    • Alan Mendelawitz, Perth, for feedback, experimentation, and correcting my error that only 2 standard shortcut keys would be overridden by this method.
    • G.A.N.M. of Perth, for tip-off that Word 97 had similar accent capabilities as Word 2000.
    • C.V.P. of Perth, for facilities to test Word 97.

    ESPERANTO ALPHABET
    A, B, C, Ĉ, D, E, F, G, Ĝ, H, Ĥ, I, J, Ĵ,
    K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, Ŝ, T, U, Ŭ, V, Z.
    a, b, c, ĉ, d, e, f, g, ĝ, h, ĥ, i, j, ĵ,
    k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, ŝ, t, u, ŭ, v, z.


       TRY IT OUT: To display a Word 2000 version of this article, for you to try out at home, visit nofonts.doc   For an Esperanto translation, visit fulmoklavoj.htm and/or fulmoklavoj.doc   For more information, including charts of the already-existing shortcuts to use French, Italian, Spanish, German, Nordic and other accented letters in Word 97 and 2000 documents, visit (English) elwa/keyboard.htm   An explanation by John Wells (Esperanto) is at verona-folio.doc
       WEBPAGES: For information on using Unicode to put Esperanto's accented letters onto internet webpages, see (English) elwa/unicoding.htm and elwa/multilingual.htm  For far deeper understanding, visit a John Wells webpage at http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm (English).
    227  230  ^ ^  CONTENTS 1-50  101-on  201-on  Translate  Links  Events  Books  HOME  Esperanto > >  v v  232
    Methods discovered 30 November 2001, the main core of this document was hived off La Nigra Cigno Nov-Dec '01 and "elwa/keyboard.htm" with Microsoft® WordPad© on 12 December 2001, to WWW 14 December 2001, last modified on 22 Jun 05
    Free TRANSLATIONS: http://babelfish.altavista.com/ http://www.tranexp.com/ http://www.alis.com/ Esperanto: http://lingvo.org/traduku/
    John Massam, 46 Cobine Way, Greenwood (a Perth suburb), Western Australia, 6024, Australia. Telephone +61 ( 0 ) 8   9343 9532, Cellular Mobile 0408 054 319
    E-mail: john.massam@multiline.com.au -- Esperanto Search Engine: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=eo
    Doc. 231.   URL = http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/nofonts.htm