Greek Polytonic Keyboard on MAC

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Thomas Dolhanty
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Joined: May 20th, 2014, 10:13 am
Location: west coast of Canada

Greek Polytonic Keyboard on MAC

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

I wonder if there is a MAC user who can help me help a student. I'm pretty comfortable with Windows set-ups, but I know nothing about MAC's.

I have a student who is moving on from basic, and having trouble getting her MAC set up to type ancient Greek. Brenda has a MacBook Pro with the latest OS - OS X Yosemite operating system. She can access the languages function (wherever or whatever that is on a MAC), but the only Greek keyboard available there is the one for modern Greek. She has spent some time googling and asking about, but has not found any working solution yet.

Does anyone know how you set up / install the Greek Polytonic Keyboard on a MacBook Pro with the latest OS - OS X Yosemite?
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cwconrad
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Re: Greek Polytonic Keyboard on MAC

Post by cwconrad »

Personally I prefer to use GreekKeys fonts and the GreekKeys Unicode(US) keyboard; I’ve been using it for two decades and find the use of option-key + numbers the most convenient way to enter accents over any vowel. See:
https://store3.esellerate.net/store/che ... atalog.htm
and http://apagreekkeys.org/index.html

On the other hand, many, especially Randall Buth, frown on using anything other than the Greek Polytonic Keyboard for typing Unicode Greek with proper accents. It’s already on a Mac that has System X 10.10 Yosemite installed; making it available to the system is simply a matter of activating it through the System Preferences. Of course you have to have one or more Unicode Greek fonts installed in the system. That’s another matter, but there are numerous fonts available such as those of GreekKeys, those from SIL and SBL, and there are many more.

Here’s the sequence of steps to activate the polytonic keyboard:
1. Go to “System Preferences’ on the Apple Menu
2. In “System Preferences” select “Language and Region” panel in the top tier
3. In “Language and Region” select “Keyboard Preferences” at bottom center of panel
4. On “Keyboard” panel select “Input Sources” on the rightmost set of options at top of panel
5. At bottom left of panel, click “+” to reveal alternative keyboards available to your system
6. Browse keyboards: two columns appear; in left-hand column select “Greek”; in the right-hand column you’ll see “Greek” and “Polytonic Greek”; you could choose both, but if you want to be able to do acute, grave and circumflex accents , you should select “Polytonic Greek” (the other keyboard will only let you type monotonic Modern Greek).
7. After selecting “Polytonic Greek”, click on “Add”

If that seems complicated, look at instructions for installing and using the keyboards available to Mac System OS X 10.10 Yosemite: http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/keyboards/mackey.html
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Thomas Dolhanty
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Joined: May 20th, 2014, 10:13 am
Location: west coast of Canada

Re: Greek Polytonic Keyboard on MAC

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

cwconrad wrote:Here’s the sequence of steps to activate the polytonic keyboard:
Carl,
Thank you so much for these clear and detailed directions. I have conveyed them, and will report back when Brenda has received them and (I trust) used them to get her system set up right. She has been typing all her Greek on an iPad (no easy cut and paste!), so this will be great news for her.
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Thomas Dolhanty
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Location: west coast of Canada

Re: Greek Polytonic Keyboard on MAC

Post by Thomas Dolhanty »

Carl,

Response to your assistance expressed best by Brenda herself (who, by the way, excelled in the Intro Greek course and is determined to press on):
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

It was so easy to set up. I already knew how to do the first half of it - I just didn’t know about the + key to get more options.

ἔ ῦ ὶ ἶ `ῶ κτλ :)

I don’t think it has rough breathing marks though.

Brenda
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Alexey Gubanov
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Joined: February 8th, 2016, 5:04 pm
Location: Russia

Re: Greek Polytonic Keyboard on MAC

Post by Alexey Gubanov »

You don't need politonic keyboard - there is more convenient way to deel with greek politonic: http://slavonicpro.ru/polytonicEn.html
Alexey Gubanov
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