WRITING CLASSICAL GREEK ON AN ANDROID DEVICE ================ Android 4 users ================ The default fonts of Android 4 don't have a classical Greek character set. Therefore you must download a font and install a font that has does have one. This font must be set as the top level display font, because on an unrooted Android device this is the only font you are allowed to change. You can get an Android version of my Hyle font from http://www.hancock.dircon.co.uk/Hyle.apk This has a full roman set, including the Latin-2 set, plus a full classical Greek set including special characters. (It doesn't have cyrillic -- this doesn't matter, as the Android device will fill it in if it's needed.) It has an attractive sans serif style which will look good on any smartphone or tablet. To install this font, simply download and run the file. The font will then appear in the list at Settings -- Display -- Font -- Font style, where you can select it. You should install this font on your big computer too. You can get the ordinary Windows / Mac version from http://www.hancock.dircon.co.uk/hyle.zip You will also need an Android word processing app which gives you full control of fonts; a lot of writing applications don't use this, but use the standard Android font Droid Sans. A suitable app is WPS Office (formerly called Kingsoft Office), which you can get from the Google Play Store. This allows you to import five fonts from your big computer, for use only within the app. You will, of course, choose fonts with a classical Greek set. You should include the big computer's version of Hyle in these five, which might seem unnecessary but is in fact needed so that the font can have a name within the app. Note that you still need Hyle installed as the main display font on the Android device, so that you can see classical Greek letters on the keyboard. For Android 4 only, there is a simple classical Greek keyboard, with the basic letters but no extras, which you can download free from: http://www.doctorandroid.gr/2013/06/greek-polytonic-keyboard.html -- click on 'Πληκτρολόγιο', and the download site is in English. The keyboard allows you to switch between all languages that you have previously selected when setting it up. It has the usual Android system for accented letters: press a key and hold it for a moment, and a table of all possible accented versions of that letter pops up. You can also install the more versatile Multiling O keyboard described below. ================ Android 5 and 6 users ================ The Android 5 and 6 system fonts have classical Greek characters, so there is no need to use a different font. There is a superior keyboard which works in Android 4, 5 and 6: the Multiling O keyboard by Han Honso, which is available free from the Google Play Store. When selecting languages, include Ἑλληνιστί, which is the classical Greek keyboard. You can select this keyboard as the default one at any time with Settings -- Language and Input -- Default, where it will be listed as Multiling O Keyboard. When this keyboard is operating, you can change languages by long pressing the space bar and sliding sideways to find the language you want. A keyboard layout for this system, designed by me, is now at http://okbdtheme.appspot.com/l1.html and can be installed by having the Multiling O keyboard installed and running, and going to this page and clicking on the pane where the keyboard is displayed. You need to do this twice, once with the device in portrait orientation and once with it in landscape orientation. The Multiling keyboard stores portrait and landscape layouts separately, in case you want different ones for each orientation. If necessary, the same keyboard can be installed manually, as follows. First, open this document, select the layout below -- do not select the lines above or below it -- and copy it into the clipboard. -------------------------------- OK_Layout_Begin ᾿¨῾ ῍῎῏῝῞῟῭΅῁· `῀´ ;ςερτυθιοπ ˉι˘ ασδφγηξκλ" ←→ ζχψωβνμ-' ᾿¨῾ ῍῎῏῝῞῟῭΅῁· `῀´ ;ΣΕΡΤΥΘΙΟΠ ˉι˘ ΑΣΔΦΓΗΞΚΛ" ←→ ΖΧΨΩΒΝΜ-' 1234567890 /\*†()[]{} #+–=!:͵ʹ̣ ϜϝϚϛϞϟϘϙϠϡ ϐϖϏϗͰͱͲͳͶͷ ϺϻϹϲϽͻϾͼϿͽ ϫϭϯϰϱϲϴϵ϶ϸϻ OK_Layout_End -------------------------------- When the classical Greek layout is selected, long press the space bar until a table appears, and slide your finger to Layouts. Choose DIY. The current layout diagram will be shown. Tap Paste, then tap OK. You need to do the above step twice, once with the device in portrait orientation and once with it in landscape orientation. In the above layout the key for the zero width underdot is an 'alternative' key selected by a long press, at the far right of the bottom row. You may prefer a WinGreek layout. Here is one. Some punctuation marks are in different places, and the zero width underdot is at the far right of the top (diacritic) row; it is a normal key, not an alternative one. --------------------------------- OK_Layout_Begin ᾿¨῾ ῍῎῏῝῞῟῭΅῁̣ `῀´ θωερτψυιοπ ˉι˘ ασδφγηςκλ" ←→ ζξχ·βνμ;' ᾿¨῾ ῍῎῏῝῞῟῭΅῁̣ `῀´ ΘΩΕΡΤΨΥΙΟΠ ˉι˘ ΑΣΔΦΓΗΣΚΛ" ←→ ΖΞΧ·ΒΝΜ;' 1234567890 /\*†()[]{} -#+–=!:͵ʹ ϜϝϚϛϞϟϘϙϠϡ ϐϖϏϗͰͱͲͳͶͷ ϺϻϹϲϽͻϾͼϿͽ ϫϭϯϰϱϲϴϵ϶ϸϻ OK_Layout_End --------------------------------- You also need to change some other settings. To do this, tap the gearwheel symbol on the keyboard -- if the keyboard is displaying capitals, long press the Lock key, which is the same key. This will bring up the Settings menu, which has various subsections. Under Long Press, select Long press for alternative. Under Word Prediction, Correction must be selected, and Insert space (after picking) must be DEselected. Under Misc -- Diacritic / Dead key sequence, set the deadkey order to vowel before diacritic. Under Size / Pos, you can adjust the width and height of the virtual keyboard. Again,this has to be done separately for portrait and landscape orientations. You can leave this adjustment till later, of course. The top row of the keyboard and the keypad consist mostly of deadkeys, which are typed after the vowel (or rho) to add diacritics. To add diacritic(s) and an iota subscript to a letter (or iota adscript to a capital), type the letter, then the key for the top diacritic(s), then the iota subscript key. The main keys can give alternative characters, which are displayed in a smaller size under the main letters. To insert any of these, long press its key. They include the numerals. The zero width underdot used to indicate a doubtful letter in an inscription. Type this after the letter to be dotted. It is a separate character, not a deadkey. To get further alternative characters, long press the comma key, which will bring up an alternative keyboard full of them. This keyboard is completely customisable: you can write your own layout using the one above as a model, or any of the other layouts supplied. Keyboards may be basic ones 10 keys wide, or ones with a keypad section 14 keys wide as in the above example (3 keypad keys, a space, and 10 letter keys). The last line of the main keyboard has only two characters -- here the arrow keys -- in its keypad section, to make room for the Shift key which is there by default. Note that in the section between line spaces, which gives alternative keys, there are four spaces to the left of each row. The final section has the alternative characters which are brought up by long pressing the comma.