I often need to insert a non-keyboard character into a text. E.g., a few
days ago I was diagramming some `ukulele chords, and wanted the musical
"flat" symbol.

To find it, I had to poke through a few fonts via Type > Insert > Character.
It would really be nice to know in advance which fonts have a given symbol.

It seems like there ought to be a way to print font files out, but the
closest I have come is to guess that if I could somehow compile a list of
all the Unicode codes and print it out to files using the various fonts,
and then erase all the little squares or question marks for glyphs that
don't exist in that font (there could be thousands), I might end up with
what I want. But I haven't got past that "somehow."

The insert character window has some puzzling things. If, e.g., I choose the
"copyright" symbol ©, there are four lines like this:

Glyph: copyright
Key: ©
Shift-Ctrl-D: co
Ctrl-D: 169

That "Ctrl-D" stuff made me hope that there was a simpler way to insert
characters than to keep calling up Type > Insert > Character anew, but if
so I haven't been able to figure out how.
--
Bart Mathias
Amiga X1000 OS4.1.6

less than 30 seconds of great googly moogly'ing... and i found this

http://typophile.com/node/61274

google is your fiend! >

On Mon, 03 Feb 2014 21:10:47 -0500, Bart Mathias <mathias@hawaii.edu> wrote:

> I often need to insert a non-keyboard character into a text. E.g., a few
> days ago I was diagramming some `ukulele chords, and wanted the musical
> "flat" symbol.
>
> To find it, I had to poke through a few fonts via Type > Insert > Character.
> It would really be nice to know in advance which fonts have a given symbol.
>
> It seems like there ought to be a way to print font files out, but the
> closest I have come is to guess that if I could somehow compile a list of
> all the Unicode codes and print it out to files using the various fonts,
> and then erase all the little squares or question marks for glyphs that
> don't exist in that font (there could be thousands), I might end up with
> what I want. But I haven't got past that "somehow."
>
> The insert character window has some puzzling things. If, e.g., I choose the
> "copyright" symbol ©, there are four lines like this:
>
> Glyph: copyright
> Key: ©
> Shift-Ctrl-D: co
> Ctrl-D: 169
>
> That "Ctrl-D" stuff made me hope that there was a simpler way to insert
> characters than to keep calling up Type > Insert > Character anew, but if
> so I haven't been able to figure out how.

more googling... and i found this... dont know if it will help in what you need to do

http://musescore.org

what you want to do wont ever really be convenient, as one has the wrong type of keyboard attached..

key remapping might work up to a point... depending on the font used..but getting it to look like proper music notation would be a little more involved for page layout and word processors type programs. (plugins might help there)

On Mon, 03 Feb 2014 21:10:47 -0500, Bart Mathias <mathias@hawaii.edu> wrote:

> I often need to insert a non-keyboard character into a text. E.g., a few
> days ago I was diagramming some `ukulele chords, and wanted the musical
> "flat" symbol.
>
> To find it, I had to poke through a few fonts via Type > Insert > Character.
> It would really be nice to know in advance which fonts have a given symbol.
>
> It seems like there ought to be a way to print font files out, but the
> closest I have come is to guess that if I could somehow compile a list of
> all the Unicode codes and print it out to files using the various fonts,
> and then erase all the little squares or question marks for glyphs that
> don't exist in that font (there could be thousands), I might end up with
> what I want. But I haven't got past that "somehow."
>
> The insert character window has some puzzling things. If, e.g., I choose the
> "copyright" symbol ©, there are four lines like this:
>
> Glyph: copyright
> Key: ©
> Shift-Ctrl-D: co
> Ctrl-D: 169
>
> That "Ctrl-D" stuff made me hope that there was a simpler way to insert
> characters than to keep calling up Type > Insert > Character anew, but if
> so I haven't been able to figure out how.

Hello Bart

On 03/02/2014, you wrote:

> I often need to insert a non-keyboard character into a text. E.g., a few
> days ago I was diagramming some `ukulele chords, and wanted the musical
> "flat" symbol.
>
> To find it, I had to poke through a few fonts via Type > Insert >
> Character. It would really be nice to know in advance which fonts have a
> given symbol.
>
> It seems like there ought to be a way to print font files out, but the
> closest I have come is to guess that if I could somehow compile a list of
> all the Unicode codes and print it out to files using the various fonts,
> and then erase all the little squares or question marks for glyphs that
> don't exist in that font (there could be thousands), I might end up with
> what I want. But I haven't got past that "somehow."
>
> The insert character window has some puzzling things. If, e.g., I choose
> the "copyright" symbol ©, there are four lines like this:
>
> Glyph: copyright
> Key: ©
> Shift-Ctrl-D: co
> Ctrl-D: 169
>
> That "Ctrl-D" stuff made me hope that there was a simpler way to insert
> characters than to keep calling up Type > Insert > Character anew, but if
> so I haven't been able to figure out how.

Why not just use a 'music' font specifically designed for the job? eg.

http://www.fontspace.com/dvm-publications/metdemo
http://www.fontspace.com/robert-allgeyer/musisync
http://www.fontspace.com/david-rakowski/lassus
http://www.fontspace.com/robert-allgeyer/musiqwik
http://www.fontspace.com/robert-allgeyer/notehedz
http://www.fontspace.com/dvm-publications/dvmarticulations
http://www.fontspace.com/dvm-publications/kiddemo
http://www.fontspace.com/philing/accords
http://www.fontspace.com/robert-allgeyer/bongos
http://www.fontspace.com/robert-allgeyer/fretqwik

They're all free to download.

Regards

Hello Nick (and admfubar)

On 02/04/2014, you wrote:

> Hello Bart
>
> On 03/02/2014, you wrote:
>
>> I often need to insert a non-keyboard character into a text. E.g., a
>> few days ago I was diagramming some `ukulele chords, and wanted the
>> musical "flat" symbol.
>>
>> To find it, I had to poke through a few fonts via Type > Insert >
>> Character. It would really be nice to know in advance which fonts have
>> a given symbol.
[...]
>
> Why not just use a 'music' font specifically designed for the job? ...

I rarely ever need to use a musical symbol; I gave a bad example. But even
if I did use such symbols often enough to make it worthwhile to have such a
font, my problem remains: What key do I type to get such-and-such a symbol?
Well, at least I would know which font to Insert Character from...

My cases are just as likely to be finding a font that has the Hawaiian
okina, or a full set of macroned vowels, or circles with numbers in them? I
was able to make a list of Ding characters simply by setting Font to Ding
and then typing every key, lower case and upper, but did I really get all
of them, or are there some that require special keys? Or can you even do it
with special keys, or does it absolutely have to be done, one at a time,
going through Type > Insert > Character every time? Occasionally I might
want to insert a Chinese character. It would be nice to have some way to
type it in, rather than poke through the list in Type > Insert > Character,
but I can live with that -- at least I know which fonts to look in.

Hello Bart

If I understand well your problem, you need something like a
virtual keyboard on screen which shows the current font's
glyphs on it.

I think that such a tool could be made.

Regards
Lazi

On 2014.02.04., Bart Mathias wrote:
> Hello Nick (and admfubar)
>
> On 02/04/2014, you wrote:
>
>> Hello Bart
>>
>> On 03/02/2014, you wrote:
>>
>>> I often need to insert a non-keyboard character into
>>> a text. E.g., a few days ago I was diagramming some
>>> `ukulele chords, and wanted the musical "flat"
>>> symbol.
>
>>> To find it, I had to poke through a few fonts via
>>> Type > Insert > Character. It would really be nice to
>>> know in advance which fonts have a given symbol.
> [...]
>>
>> Why not just use a 'music' font specifically designed
>> for the job? ...
>
> I rarely ever need to use a musical symbol; I gave a
> bad example. But even if I did use such symbols often
> enough to make it worthwhile to have such a font, my
> problem remains: What key do I type to get
> such-and-such a symbol? Well, at least I would know
> which font to Insert Character from...
>
> My cases are just as likely to be finding a font that
> has the Hawaiian okina, or a full set of macroned
> vowels, or circles with numbers in them? I was able to
> make a list of Ding characters simply by setting Font
> to Ding and then typing every key, lower case and
> upper, but did I really get all of them, or are there
> some that require special keys? Or can you even do it with
> special keys, or does it absolutely have to be done,
> one at a time, going through Type > Insert > Character
> every time? Occasionally I might want to insert a
> Chinese character. It would be nice to have some way to
type
> it in, rather than poke through the list in Type >
> Insert > Character, but I can live with that -- at
> least I know which fonts to look in.
>

Hello Lazar

On 02/14/2014, you wrote:

> Hello Bart
>
> If I understand well your problem, you need something like a
> virtual keyboard on screen which shows the current font's
> glyphs on it.

The Character-insert tool does that to an extent. If a font only has a few
hundred characters, I can make the window big enough to show them all. The
problem is that once I select a character and insert it, the insert window
closes, and if I want to add more than one from a given font, I have to
reopen it. It would be nice if it would stay open and allow more than one
insertion at a time. And I still have to open a font at a time to see if it
has what I want.

I have started to solve my problem otherwise by SGrabbing and printing those
windows. For Code2000.TTF that came to 12 pages, leaving out most of the
Chinese, but most fonts can be copied on one page. So when I get done with
that, I'll at least be able to find what I want on paper or a .ps file and
know where to go in PgS.

> I think that such a tool could be made.

Beyond me. For now, anyway.

Thanks,
Bart

> Regards
> Lazi
>
> On 2014.02.04., Bart Mathias wrote:
>> Hello Nick (and admfubar)
>>
>> On 02/04/2014, you wrote:
>>
>>> Hello Bart
>>>
>>> On 03/02/2014, you wrote:
>>>
>>>> I often need to insert a non-keyboard character into
>>>> a text. E.g., a few days ago I was diagramming some
>>>> `ukulele chords, and wanted the musical "flat"
>>>> symbol.
>>
>>>> To find it, I had to poke through a few fonts via
>>>> Type > Insert > Character. It would really be nice to
>>>> know in advance which fonts have a given symbol.
>> [...]
>>>
>>> Why not just use a 'music' font specifically designed
>>> for the job? ...
>>
>> I rarely ever need to use a musical symbol; I gave a
>> bad example. But even if I did use such symbols often
>> enough to make it worthwhile to have such a font, my
>> problem remains: What key do I type to get
>> such-and-such a symbol? Well, at least I would know
>> which font to Insert Character from...
>>
>> My cases are just as likely to be finding a font that
>> has the Hawaiian okina, or a full set of macroned
>> vowels, or circles with numbers in them? I was able to
>> make a list of Ding characters simply by setting Font
>> to Ding and then typing every key, lower case and
>> upper, but did I really get all of them, or are there
>> some that require special keys? Or can you even do it with
>> special keys, or does it absolutely have to be done,
>> one at a time, going through Type > Insert > Character
>> every time? Occasionally I might want to insert a
>> Chinese character. It would be nice to have some way to
> type
>> it in, rather than poke through the list in Type >
>> Insert > Character, but I can live with that -- at
>> least I know which fonts to look in.
>>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> PageStream Amiga. Desktop Publishing for Classic Amiga, OS4, and
> MorphOS.http://www.pagestream.orgYahoo Groups Links
>
>
>