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Unicode Applications

For the purposes of the GreekStudy list, you need an operating system that supports Unicode, a polytonic Unicode font, and three Unicode-aware applications: a browser, a word processor, and an email program.

Alan Wood's Unicode Resources site is an excellent resource for finding and configuring Unicode applications.

Operating Systems

Unicode works on all Windows systems of the last decade or so, including 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, and XP.

Apple's Mac OS X has supported Unicode since its first release.  Mac OS Classic (9.2 and earlier) does not support Unicode properly.

Linux and most modern Unix variants support Unicode.

Polytonic Unicode Fonts

Ancient Greek is written in a polytonic (many diacritical marks) Greek script, whereas modern Greek is usually written in the monotonic (one diacritical mark) or demotic Greek script.  Thus a Unicode font supporting only modern Greek will not be satisfactory for ancient Greek.  Earlier versions of the Unicode standard recognized only monotonic Greek.

Windows users have a number of preinstalled polytonic Greek Unicode fonts.  On Windows 2000, there is Palatino Linotype.  On Windows XP, the choices are Palatino Linotype, Tahoma, and Microsoft Sans Serif.  The Arial Unicode MS font that comes bundled with Office 2000 and later supports polytonic Greek.

Mac OS X has shipped with Lucida Grande, a Unicode font supporting polytonic Greek, since at least 10.2 (Jaguar).  Apple's font support has gone into overdrive in release 10.4 (Tiger), where almost every font supports polytonic Greek.

The following free Unicode fonts support polytonic Greek.  They may be used both on Windows and Mac OS X.  Many other similar Unicode fonts, free and commercial, can be found by searching the net.

• Gentium
• Vusillus Old Face Italic
• TITUS Cyberbit

Note that it does not matter which Unicode font you use.  People are sometimes concerned that the recipients of their email should use the same font (e.g.  Arial, Palatino Linotype) as they are using.  The key is the Unicode standard and the support of polytonic Greek.  Each person can use whatever such font is available and aesthetically pleasing to them.  This is not the case in non-standard fonts such as SPIonic, where both sides of an exchange must use the exact same font.

Browsers

Most browsers support Unicode, unless you're using something from the Internet's paleolithic era, in which case you have yet another reason to upgrade.

However Internet Explorer on Windows is a bit problematic when it comes to displaying polytonic Greek.  In particular, on some websites the Greek vowels with diacritical marks will display as boxes, whereas on others the correct characters will display.  The difference is the designers of the later websites explicitly specified a Unicode font that supports polytonic Greek, whereas the designers of the former websites assumed the browser would pick an appropriate default Unicode font.  This assumption works beautifully on browsers such as Firefox, Opera, or Safari, but Explorer appears unable to handle polytonic Greek Unicode properly without additional hints from the webpage, as demonstrated here.

This problem also appears when you use Internet Explorer to read web based email, such as provided by Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail.

The simplest way around the Internet Explorer problem is to use a modern browser such as Firefox or Opera for viewing polytonic Greek.  In a pinch, cutting and pasting the Greek text into a Unicode-capable word processor will restore it to readability.

Internet Explorer on Mac OS X has the same issues and more.  Mac users should browse with Safari, Firefox, or Opera.

Perhaps the best source of help in configuring browsers for Unicode use is Alan Wood's discussion of Unicode and Multilingual Web browsers.  The Unicode Consortium also provides a useful help page on browser display problems.

Email Programs

Most modern email programs can handle Unicode text properly, including Outlook, Outlook Express, Apple Mail, Mozilla, and Thunderbird.  A notable exception is Eudora, which even in its most recent version is totally innocent of Unicode.

To send Unicode email, most people find it convenient to compose their message in a Unicode-capable word processor, then cut and paste that message into an email.

If you haven't sent Unicode email before, you should send it just to yourself the very first time.  If you can't read it, the chances are good that your recipients are going to have problems as well.

If your email program can't read Unicode, the typical remedy, aside from upgrading or switching, is to copy the message and paste it into a Unicode-aware word processor.

If your browser can display polytonic Greek text, you should be able to use web-based mail services such as Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail.  Depending on the service, you may need to manually adjust your browser's encoding to Unicode or UTF-8 to see the message properly. You may also have some issues with Internet Explorer.

As of late 2005, Yahoo's email service will cheerfully accept a cut and paste of Unicode text, then insists on marking the email as ASCII text.  All reasonable email programs see the ASCII indication and display utter trash.  Most email programs can be adjusted to view the email message as UTF-8.  Failing that, you can cut and paste the email message into a Unicode-capable word processor.  Until Yahoo fixes their software, you might want to persuade your interlocutor to try out Yahoo's competition, GMail.  Google's GMail sends and receives Unicode text perfectly.

Word Processors

Word processor support for Unicode has been slow in coming, but there are a number of options these days.  Only a few are mentioned here.

Word 2003 has support for polytonic Greek on Windows 2000 and XP. Microsoft has provided instructions on setting up Word 2003 for polytonic Greek.  Earlier versions of Word did not have a polytonic keyboard, although the Arial Unicode MS font bundled with Word has supported polytonic Greek for several releases.  Word 2004 is the first Macintosh version of Word that supports polytonic Greek.

TextEdit on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) supports polytonic Greek.  Sam Tucker has provided some useful instructions for using TextEdit on Tiger and earlier releases of Mac OS X.  You may also want to check out Mellel, a highly regarded, Unicode-capable word processor for the Mac.

Unicorn is a free, light-weight word processor that not only handles polytonic Greek, but provides extensive Latin and Greek dictionaries that can give a lexical analysis of inflected words, such as nouns and verbs.  It runs on both Windows and Mac OS X systems and is considerably simpler to set up and use than similar programs.