Special Characters and Diacritics

When working with records, you may need to enter characters that are not available on the standard keyboard. To insert special characters and diacritics, use WorkFlows’ Symbol Table. This table is available from the Tools menu.

The Symbol Table simplifies the entry of special characters and diacritics by allowing you to highlight, select, and insert the desired character or diacritic using the mouse or a key sequence typed on the keyboard.

If the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols is selected for entering characters, the Character list and Language field in the Symbol Table window can be used to help identify the character you want to insert.

To insert symbols into fields in WorkFlows, you must customize fonts to use a Unicode font.

To customize fonts

On the Preference menu, point to Desktop.

Click Font Settings.

The Select Fonts dialog box opens.

Click the Font Chooser Gadget in the Customize Font field under Window Text. If you have installed the Microsoft Unicode fonts, select Arial Unicode MS in the Font list.

Note: The font selection you make in the Customize Font field is saved and used for future WorkFlows client sessions.

Click OK to close the Select Fonts dialog box.

If you are in the process of modifying a value when you change fonts, you need to close the record and begin again.

To install Unicode fonts, see FAQs: Installing Microsoft’s Unicode Fonts.

Additionally, to input Unicode characters, you must add keyboard drivers for the different language keyboards you will be using. For more information, go to FAQs: Adding Keyboard Layouts in Windows 2000.

To have as full a full range of characters and symbols as possible available to you on a Windows PC, SirsiDynix recommends using Microsoft’s Arial Unicode MS font. The Arial MS Unicode font supports more Unicode characters than any other font at this time — approximately 45,000 of the 100,000 plus Unicode characters, which, in many instances, is sufficient. Other Unicode fonts are available and can be used.

For example, Code2000 is a shareware font that supports approximately 34,000 Unicode characters. So, the Code2000 font would be good sometimes, but would not be ideal other times because it has 12,000 less Unicode characters than Arial Unicode MS font. The Arial Unicode MS font is delivered with version 2000 or higher of any of the following Microsoft programs running on Windows 2000:

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Access

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Excel

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FrontPage

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Office

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Outlook

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PowerPoint

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Publisher

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Word

Using the Symbol Table with Record Open

To use the Symbol Table (with record open)

Place the cursor in the field or text box where you want to insert a special character (such as in a subfield of a title record).

If you want to use the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols, place the cursor immediately following the character to which you want to add a diacritic. Unlike the larger Diacritics and Symbols code set in which you select combinations of letters and diacritics, the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols includes diacritics that are applied to a letter you enter from the keyboard. Refer to the notes at the end of this topic if you want to enter ligatures, paired diacritics, and multiple diacritics.

Do one of the following.

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On the Tools menu, click Symbol Table.

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On the keyboard, press ALT+T+S.

The Symbol Table window opens.

In the Select Code Set list, select the code set you want.

Use the Font Chooser gadget to customize the font used by the Symbol Table. The default font is Arial Unicode MS.

In the Symbol Table window, do one of the following.

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If you are using the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols, select the name of the diacritic mark or symbol from the Character list. Click Insert or press ALT+O (oh) to insert the character and leave the Symbol Table window open, or click Insert and Close or press ALT+B to insert the character and close the Symbol Table window.

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Select with the mouse or press Tab to until you highlight the character you want to insert, and press Enter. The character displays at the cursor, and the Symbol Table window remains open.

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Double-click the character you want to insert. The character displays at the cursor, and the Symbol Table window remains open.

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Select the character you want to insert, and click Insert, or press ALT+O (oh). The character displays at the cursor, and the Symbol Table window remains open.

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Select the character you want to insert, and click Insert and Close, or press ALT+B. The character displays at the cursor, and the Symbol Table window closes.

When you finish inserting characters and the Symbol Table window is still open, click Close or press ALT+C to exit the Symbol Table.

Wizard Properties and Multiple Windows Mode

If you open the Properties window by selecting Properties from the wizard’s right-click menu, the Symbol Table window will not display on top of the Properties window when you open it. In this case you cannot:

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Make the table display on top of the Properties window by pointing to Active and selecting Symbol Table

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Make the table display by pressing ALT+D, A and the underlined letter for the Symbol Table option displayed in the opened menu.

Do the following to enter special characters on a wizard Properties window.

Select the Wizard Startup option in the wizard properties so the Properties window will display as the first window when the wizard opens.

Open the Symbol Table window by selecting Symbol Table from the Tools menu, or by pressing ALT+T+S.

When multiple windows mode is used, and the Symbol Table is open but displays behind a window other than a wizard Properties window that was opened from the wizard’s right-click menu, the table can be brought to the front, as follows:

Point to the Windows menu.

Point to Active.

Select Symbol Table or press ALT+D, A, and the underlined letter for the Symbol Table option displayed in the opened menu (usually S, but may be other letters if more than one Symbol Table window is open, or if wizard windows beginning with the letter S are open).

ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols

You may also use certain keyboard shortcuts if you want to insert special characters and diacritics from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set. Refer to ALA Character Set Keyboard Shortcuts for more information.

When using the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols, enter ligatures, paired diacritics, and multiple diacritics from the letter and moving left to right, bottom to top. For example, to enter an A with dot below and a grave above, type the letter A, then enter the dot below from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set, then enter the grave above from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set. To enter “ng” as a ligature, type the letter N, then enter the left ligature from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set, then type the letter G, then enter the right ligature from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set.