Re: Greek fonts and email

David L. Moore (dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com)
Tue, 14 Jan 1997 11:02:01 -0500

At 07:38 AM 1/14/97 -0500, Jonathan Robie wrote:
><html>
>At 12:02 PM 1/13/97 -0800, Rod Bias wrote:
>>Jonathan Robie wrote:
>>>
>>> I think the best approach is to agree on a font which is available for both
>>> Windows and Mac, and which is freely available. So far, I know about two
>>> fonts that fit the bill:
>>>
>>> SGreek Fixed, available from http://www.silvermnt.com
>>> SPIonic, available from ftp://scholar.cc.emory.edu/pub/fonts/
>>
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>> Isn't "Mounce" Free? http://www.teknia.com
>> Doesn't it look better than either SGreek Fixed or SPIonic?
>> It works on both MAC and MS-DOS ... not requiring Windoz95!
>
>Frankly, I don't particulary *like* any of these three fonts. But all are
>much better than reading Greek in ASCII. However, Bill Mounce just mentioned
>that he is getting ready to release a new set of fonts, and I know that
>there is another set that should be released quite soon - but I can't say
>anything about it. The people doing it originally said I could spread the
>word, but then asked me not to, at least not by name. I'll report back as
>soon as I can.
>
>How many people out there use MS-DOS without Windows or Windows 95? I would
>like to receive email from anybody who is, since we need to take you into
>account.
>
>My own preference would be:
>
>1. ASCII transliteration should always be accepted in whatever scheme people
>prefer
>2. We could agree on a freely-available font, e.g. Symbol, for
>transliteration without accents. Anybody should be able to read that, with
>or without the font. I do like the parenthesis *before* the word for a rough
>breathing:
><font face="Symbol" color="blue">
> En arxh hn (o logos
></font>

I would point out that the parentheses before the word could be
mistaken for a "parentheses" rather than the rough breathing indicator. The
Symbol font has the drawback that it lacks some letters and has no capacity
for accentuation.

>3. We need to decide if we want a font for full transliteration. If so, we
>can either choose from one of the above fonts, or wait for one of the two
>which will soon be released. *Any* scheme for full transliteration makes the
>ASCII harder to read, but it makes the Greek easier to read. David Moore's
>idea about a font that supports the scheme "we use on b-greek" is a good one
>if we can all agree to use this scheme - but note that his scheme uses the
>same transliteration that Sgreek and SPIonic use:
><p>
><font face="Sgreek Fixed" color="blue">
>*gra/fwn ou(/tws, a)naginw/skein du/nantai pa/ntes.
></font>
><p>We could just agree to use one of these fonts. Of course, I suspect that
>many of us would then start posting with all the accents if our Bible
>programs allow this, and that might be harder on the eyes of anybody who is
>just reading straight out of email without font support.

I find that SGreek does render our transliteration scheme in a
fairly readable format. I had hoped to retain the caps in the
transliterated text as CCAT beta code does (notice the aterisk I used to
indicate the Greek capital gamma), but that is probably impractical. The
"s" at the end of the word would have to be "j" to render the final sigma,
but apart from that, the transliteration we have been using stays pretty
much in tact. SGreek does not render especially crisply on my browser
(Netscape 3), but it is quite readable Greek.

David L. Moore Director
Miami, Florida, USA Department of Education
dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com Southeastern Spanish District
http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore of the Assemblies of God