www.alphadictionary.com

OK, I have a question for the veterans here. I have seen many Good Word Suggestions from you in which you have included proper pronunciation keys--you know, upside down "e"s, even umlauts, etc.
I'm obviously ignorant on many things. How do you do this? Is it a type of keyboard, a program, a font? Heck, I can't even figure out how to use the accent key that's on my laptop!
Thanks for any help!

check out the character map on WORD, That's where I find some help

mark

OK, I have a question for the veterans here. I have seen many Good Word Suggestions from you in which you have included proper pronunciation keys--you know, upside down "e"s, even umlauts, etc.
I'm obviously ignorant on many things. How do you do this? Is it a type of keyboard, a program, a font? Heck, I can't even figure out how to use the accent key that's on my laptop!
Thanks for any help!

I don't know if the schwa dilemma was ever resolved, but for diacriticals (on PC) you can convert your keyboard setting to English/International, which will enable accents aigu/grave, circumflexes, tildes and umlauts. Control Panel/Regional and Language Options/Advanced/drop-down menu will set it up; also available is a host of other languages in case you need ß, Ð, ђ, И, etc.

rats, I used to be able to find a character map I could find shortcuts for stuff like:
alt+ 0153 ™
alt+0244 ô
alt+0231 ç
alt+0199 Ç
alt+0209 Ñ
alt+0241 ñ
alt+0198 Æ
alt+0201 É
alt+0233 é
that I keep on file for quick reference, Now I can't find it...anyone know what I'm talking about and where to find it?

mark

Try this site:
ascii character map

In addition to the basic table, click on the topics to get to specialty lists. If this doesn't help, let me know and I'll look further through some old documentation. (Fonts, special characters, and how to access them for both Mac & PC has been quite helpful in my line of work.)

-gailr

OK, I have a question for the veterans here. I have seen many Good Word Suggestions from you in which you have included proper pronunciation keys--you know, upside down "e"s, even umlauts, etc.
I'm obviously ignorant on many things. How do you do this? Is it a type of keyboard, a program, a font? Heck, I can't even figure out how to use the accent key that's on my laptop!
Thanks for any help!

To display those funky characters, or at least the schwa (Ə and ə), you'll need a Unicode font.

Now, as to how to get them into your post, the easiest method is already there on the left side of the compose box, courtesy of Andrew the Board God, after a suggestion made some time ago by your humble correspondent. Just click the link below the and icons and voilà, a new window will open with More Emoticons and Accented Characters than you'll probably need.

Now, if you're composing in something other that the AlphaAgora, in WinDoze you'll need to either open up the character map (charmap.exe -- and don't forget to select the font) or install another keyboard input local in Control Panel/Keyboard/Inupt Locales tab. But that's a lesson for a different time.

thanks,

mark

Thank you! I think now I should be able to compose anything now up to and including braille!

Thank you! I think now I should be able to compose anything now up to and including braille!

Jacque's Braille? -- hey geezer, yer right! A whole new whirled of emots ...well one anyway.

The bit about installing another keyboard input (it used to be Control Panel/Keyboard/etc on Win98) was what I described above. I always set this up immediately on getting a new computer -right after ripping out the *(#*&@ number lock key- and it makes all them diacriticals (mais pas le schwa) available with a single keystroke, on this board or anywhere else.

. . .

The bit about installing another keyboard input (it used to be Control Panel/Keyboard/etc on Win98) was what I described above. I always set this up immediately on getting a new computer -right after ripping out the *(#*&@ number lock key- and it makes all them diacriticals (mais pas le schwa) available with a single keystroke, on this board or anywhere else.

Well, sometimes just a single keystroke. On mine when I switch I still have to hit two keys to get some characters: e. g., left bracket and a vowel to get âêîôûŷŵŝĝĥĉ (yes, I tried the whole alphabet; that is with the French (Canada) and French (France) keyboards. With the English (Canada) keyboard it's two strokes to get à -- single quote and a ('a). Çame ( ) for c-cedilla.

But hey, if you're just composing here, the Accented Characters works fine. It also has the shwa and other things like ā a-macron or ă a-breve and so forth if you're trying to do a conventional pronunciation.

Enjoy! Spread the word!