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Ecological Linguistics Fonts

High quality fonts for non-Roman alphabets and for transliterations into Roman script, and intuitive and ergonomic keyboard software for quick typing.   For Macintosh and Windows computers.
Unicode Transliteration Fonts
Indic & SE Asian Fonts
Cyrillic, OCS, Glagolitic, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic
Ancient Near East fonts
Keyboard software for Mac OS 10.2
Links
 
Installing fonts and keyboards in operating system 10.2 or later For OS 10.2 and later, you drag fonts into the Fonts folder inside a Library folder, and software keyboards into a Keyboard Layouts folder. Additional details follow below, first on keyboard layout software, then on fonts, then on older systems. To be able to use keyboard software, you must go through three steps.
1. Putting Keyboard Layout software into OS 10.2 or later Go into the "Library" folder on the top level of your OS X disk, then into the "Keyboard Layouts" folder, put the keyboard file there. (You can also put this file into the "Keyboard Layouts" folder inside the "Library" folder specific to a particular user, if only that user needs it, but that is not the default.) Then re-start your computer and go to step 2. below.
2. Making Keyboard software available in OS 10.2 or later

In the Apple menu, go to System Preferences, click on the "International" icon. (Or from the "Flag" menu at the upper right, click on "Open International".) Choose the tab labeled "Input Menu". Place check marks next to the software keyboards which you wish to have available for use. If you installed OS 10.2 with all of the extra options from the Language Kits folder of your Install disks (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Thai, Arabic, Iranian, Hebrew, western and eastern Europe), you should have quite a number to choose among.
The order of listing is this: Palettes and Input Methods (Japanese etc.) first, then Cyrillic, Central European, and Roman keyboards, and then Unicode keyboards. There are thus several alphabetical lists one after the other, and new custom keyboards for Unicode fonts will be in the last list.

You may also want to install and activate the software keyboards
"US Extended" and "Unicode Hex Input" provided by Apple on your operating system installation disks. The first of these allows many accented characters. For the second, you hold down the option key while touching four keys in order to create a hexadecimal code, from (0, 1, ... 9, a, b, c, d, e, f).

Once you have made keyboard software available in this way, going back to the "International" "Input Menu", you will see the names of these possibilities shown near the top of the listing, with a check mark.
3. Activating Keyboard software in OS 10.2 or later

Installed keyboard software which you have made available as indicated just above in step 2. should show up in the "flag" menu in your menu bar. Our keyboard software does not come with special icons, so only a default icon of a tiny keyboard will appear there. This is normal.

Click on the keyboard you wish to use, and that keyboard will become active if it is compatible with the font in the document you are working on. (If it is greyed out, Apple's operating system or the application is assuming the context is not right for the intended use. Either choose again a font intended for Unicode, or choose application software which supports Unicode.)

You can also use Command-Spacebar to rotate between software keyboards of different scripts (writing systems), or Command-Option-Spacebar to rotate between software keyboards within a script (writing system).

With a few of our keyboards, even our newest ones for Unicode fonts, you need also to turn on the CapsLock key in order to achieve the special functionality required for a particular alphabet.
Apple Mac automatic font substitution A "feature" of current Mac operating systems is that if you key a character which is not present in the font you are currently using, the operating system will switch into a font which contains the character you requested. This can be very annoying, requiring you to switch back again. We attempt to prevent this by having our keyboards generate only character codes which are included in the fonts with which they are intended to be used.
If you suspect that this is affecting your usage, please give us a detailed report here with the name of the keyboard layout software name that you are using, its creation date (from the file), the complete name of the font you were using, and what keying you used when the switch of fonts occurred.
Keyboard software from earlier operating systems 7.1 to 9.2 in Mac OS 10.2 or later

OS 10.2+ will accept keyboard software (Ecological Linguistics versions 7.1 to 7.8), if you append to the keyboard file name the suffix “.rsrc” (without the quotes). In other cases we have designed new keyboard software to permit continued use of (upgraded) older fonts in OS 10.2+.

Some of our keyboard software for non-Unicode fonts originally in our versions 7.1 to 7.8, will appear alphabetically by name among the keyboard input software items for various countries using the Roman alphabet.
Purchasing software keyboards for Mac OS 10.2 “Jaguar” or later Ecological Linguistics has extensive experience designing intuitive and ergonomic keyboard access for a wide range of alphabets and writing systems. We have available keyboard software which gives access to virtually all characters which may be present in Unicode fonts intended for Latin-letter transliterations, available for $25. We can also design custom keyboard software for you, please inquire. For transliteration fonts, you can obtain a large number of software keyboard files, a different one most smoothly adapted to each field of use (Ancient Near East, India / Southeast Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Africa, etc.). Because nearly all Unicode fonts use the same encodings, keyboard software and fonts are now independent. Our superior keyboard access can of course be used with true Unicode fonts from all manufacturers, since character encodings are now a universal standard.
Upgrades to our version 10.2+ We can upgrade almost all fonts to work with system 10.2 or later. This avoids certain printer problems. Better of course are Unicode-compatible fonts, please see our font listings.
TrueType or Postscript fonts?

Use either TrueType or Postscript fonts, but do not try to install both versions of the same font (the computer will face a conflict). With some software (Adobe Illustrator, ATM, and similar), only Postscript is usable. With some printers which do not support Postscript, only TrueType is usable. OpenType versions will be available later in 2008
Installing fonts in Mac Operating System 10.2 “Jaguar”

Starting with OS 10.2, TrueType is preferred, and is likely to have fewer difficulties. You can install the fonts in different Fonts folders inside different Libraries, depending on whether you want them accessible to all users, or only to particular users who log on with their passwords to access them. You can use the Fonts folder inside the main Library folder. Or inside the folder USERS, go into your Home folder (icon of a house), then into the Libraries folder, then into the Fonts folder.

Upgrades to our version 7.8 If you have earlier pre-Unicode fonts from Ecological Linguistics, check that the date of latest modification is 1999 or later, and the version number on the disk label is 7.1 or later. If you have anything earlier in date or version (including 7.0.1), you should get an upgrade to version 7.8 (still pre-Unicode). On Macintosh, these are for use from Operating System 7.1 up through 9.2, and usable even in Operating systems 10.2 or later. On Windows, these are usable in Windows 98 and beyond. Upgrades cost $25 for one alphabet, $50 for two or more alphabet upgrades, any number supplied at the same time on one CD.
  FOLLOWING CONCERN ONLY OLDER OPERATING SYSTEMS
Installing keyboard software in OS 9.2 running as a process inside of Mac OS 10.2 “Jaguar” Restart the computer using OS 9.2 as STARTUP system (not as "classic" mode, a process under OS 10.2). Install the keyboard software in this mode, following the instructions below. After it is installed, you can then use it in OS 9.2 also running as a process under OS 10.2, you simply cannot INSTALL it when 9.2 is a process under 10.2.
Installing fonts in Mac Operating Systems 7.x to 9.x

Drag the individual font files (not the folders) onto the closed icon of the System Folder. If you do this correctly, you will see a screen message that Fonts need to be installed in the Fonts folder, and asking if you wish to proceed. Click OK to install. If you do not see such a screen message, you are almost certainly not installing the software. It is better to let the computer install the fonts in this way, rather than yourself to place the fonts directly into the Fonts folder. (To replace fonts with newer versions, or to remove fonts, you must close all application software, and then manually drag the font files out of the Fonts folder, into the trash, or into a folder on your desktop where you keep backup copies for safety.)
Installing keyboard software in Mac OS 7.1 to 9.x

First close all application software. You drag the individual software keyboard file (not a folder) onto the closed icon of the System Folder. If you do this correctly, you will see a screen message that keyboard software needs to be installed in the System file, and asking if you wish to proceed. Click OK to install. If you do not see such a screen message, you are almost certainly not installing the software. You must also activate the keyboard software, see below. (Do not use keyboard software versions earlier than 7.1. Do not use version 7.0.1. If you need an upgrade, it is $20.)

Activating keyboard software in Mac OS 7.x to 8.x

After the keyboard software is installed, you can activate it by going into the control panel, “keyboard” module. Click on the name of the keyboard to turn it black, then close. Then if your paper keyboard diagram is called a "CapsLock keyboard", activate your CapsLock key, and use that diagram and instructions for keying.
Activating keyboard software in Mac OS 9.x In the control panel, make the keyboard software accessible by clicking on the name of the keyboard so a check mark appears beside it. This selects which software keyboards will appear in your “flag” menu. Go to the "flag" menu in the upper right of your Menu Bar, and switch from "USA" or other keyboard to the specialty keyboard for your particular font. Then use the CapsLock key as stated for OS 7.x to 8.x
Removing keyboard software in Mac OS 7.x to 9.x Before attempting to replace keyboard software with a newer version or to remove it, you must first close all applications and deactivate the keyboard software you wish to remove, by switching to the default “USA” or other keyboard software. Then open your System file, and manually drag the software keyboard into the trash, or into a folder on your desktop where you keep backup copies for safety.
Problems in Mac OS 7.x to 9.x Remember you must also choose the font in the manner normal in your application software. The most common frustrations we hear about are when people either did not install or activate the keyboard software, or did not choose the font. If you are getting only English letters, or the wrong letters, it is a good indication that one or the other of these steps was omitted. A very few applications may change keyboard software each time they start up, and you may have to choose the keyboard again from the "flag" menu as stated above.
(Some of our software keyboards show a flag with a small "6." This means merely that with Capslock key off, keyings Shift-Option-e,u,i,n,y,r,m yield different results from those in later system-7 keying.)