Greek Fonts

Windows environment

You may have to install Greek fonts if you want to be able to read Greek documents using a Windows environment. You will also need to install a Greek keyboard driver if you want to type Greek. In addition, if you want to use Classical Greek ("polytonic system") you will need different fonts and drivers.
This is because Modern Greek involves single-accented characters only, whereas classical Greek involves multi-accented characters. In the following you will find a brief guide on getting and installing the required fonts and drivers for both Modern and classical Greek language support.

Modern Greek

Windows 95/98/Me or higher includes all the necessary fonts and keyboard drivers that enable you to read, write and print Modern Greek on your PC. Follow the steps described below to activate the Windows built-in capability to support the Modern Greek language.

1. First, you need to install the Multilanguage Support module for Windows 95/98, if not already installed. This module contains a set of basic fonts and keyboard drivers for supporting a number of languages, including Greek. You will need the Windows 95/98 CD-ROM, or you will have to download the Multilanguage Support module from Microsoft's web site and follow to the relevant installation instructions. If you have the Windows 95/98 CD-ROM, then follow these steps:

• Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel. Double click the Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel window, then click the Windows Setup tab.
• In the Windows Setup dialog box, click Multilanguage Support, then click Details; select the Greek Language Support checkbox, and click the OK button. This should start the installation of the Multilanguage Support module for Modern Greek.
• Restart your computer when you are asked to. When your computer starts you should be able to view Greek (eg. on the Web). To be able to type Greek also, you have to complete the installation of the Greek keyboard driver as well.

• Go to Control Panel and double click Keyboard. Then click the Language tab.
• In the Installed keyboard languages and layouts section of the Language dialog box you should be able by now to see at least two languages: English and Greek. If, however, you do not see Greek, click the Add... button and select Greek from the list. You should now see Gr Greek. Highlight Gr Greek (click it), and then click the Properties button.
• In the Language Properties dialog box set keyboard layout to Greek. At this point we in effect choose the keyboard driver, which determines the arrangement of the Greek letters on the keyboard keys (keyboard layout).
• There are two more steps, before you click the OK button: To switch languages on the keyboard choose one of the Left Alt+Shift and Ctrl+Shift key combinations. Also, if you check on the Enable indicator on taskbar option, you will be able to see which is the currently active keyboard language.
• Click the OK button to complete the installation of the keyboard driver for Greek.

To type Greek, you should first switch the keyboard layout to Greek, then start typing having the following in mind:

• The accent mark is assigned to the ; key. Press this key first, and then press the vowel key to enter an accented vowel.
• To type a vowel with the umlaut-like diacritical mark ('') on it, press the Shift + ; combination (press both keys simultaneously) followed by the vowel key.
• To place both the accent mark and the umlaut-like mark over the iota or the ipsilon vowels, hold down the right Alt, the Shift and the ; keys simultaneously, then (release them all and) press the vowel key.
• Press the Q key to enter the Greek question mark (;).
• Press the Shift + Q to enter the Greek colon (: "ano kato teleia").
• The semicolon ("ano teleia") character is inserted as a special symbol. For example, in Word for Windows this is accomplished through the Insert - Symbol option of the Menu.

Classical or Polytonic Greek

Unlike Modern Greek, Classical Greek uses multiple diacritical marks, i.e., accent marks. Hence, the term "polytonic", which stands for "polytonico", a Greek adjective meaning multi-accented.

Windows 2000

If you are using Windows 2000 and Office '97 (or higher), then you can type and print Classical Greek documents without having to install any special software or additional fonts beyond what is already included in the Windows CD-ROM. Windows 2000 includes the Classical Greek (or Polytonic Greek) keyboard driver and a Unicode font with all the Classical Greek characters. This font is called Palatino Linotype. Activating the Classical Greek language in a Windows 2000 environment is very similar to activating the Modern Greek language in a Windows 95/98/Me environment:

• Click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click the Regional Options icon.
• On the General tab, under Language settings select the check box next to the Greek language.
• To complete the installation of the selected language, you must insert the Windows 2000 CD-ROM.
• Restart your computer when Windows 2000 prompts you to do so.

• Open Regional Options or Keyboard in Control Panel (click Start, point to Settings, click Control Panel, and then double-click the appropriate icon or item).
• On the Input Locales tab, click the Add button.
• In the Add Input Locale dialog box, set Greek as the input locale (language) and select Greek Polytonic as the keyboard layout.
• In the Hot keys for the input locales section select the desired key combination for switching between the installed input locales.
• Select the Enable indicator on taskbar check box to be able to see the active input language.
• Click the OK button to complete Greek input locale installation.

To complete any of the above procedures you must be logged in as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group.

Successful completion of the previous steps 1 and 2 alone will allow you to type and print polytonic Greek documents but only when you use a Unicode font that includes the polytonic Greek characters (currently Palatino Linotype is the only such font included in Windows 2000).

Of course, in Windows 2000 you can have both Modern Greek and Polytonic Greek keyboard layouts installed. In this case, in step 2 above you have to add the Greek language as an input locale again, but with a Modern Greek keyboard layout (eg. Greek (220)).

Windows 95/98/Me or earlier

In Windows versions earlier than Windows 2000, proprietary non-standardised software and (non-Unicode) fonts have to be installed to enable processing of polytonic Greek. Such software packages and fonts have been developed by the departments of Classical studies of various universities outside Greece, as well as by the University of Athens and the Institute for the Language and Speech Processing in Greece. Furthermore, a number of commercial packages have been released in the market, for example Eurokeys and Polytonistis for Word 95. Unfortunately, most of those polytonic fonts lack interoperability, since they use different encodings from each other. This makes font encoding converters necessary when exchanging polytonic Greek documents between different software and/or hardware platforms. However, this was the only alternative until the Unicode standard (ISO-IC 10646-1 to be more precise) was released on 1993. Unicode was later adopted by the majority of the software and fonts developers' communities and is now a widely accepted standard. The Unicode standard allocates a specific set of dedicated character codes, officially called "the Greek Extended codepage", which covers all the polytonic Greek characters. Thus, any font developer can include the Polytonic Greek characters when developing a Unicode font. Furthermore, these fonts are fully compatible with any Unicode editor or word-processor (like Microsoft Word 97/2000) or any other Unicode compliant software application.

A number of links, where you can find Unicode fonts (that include Polytonic Greek) as well as related software are listed below.

1. Unicode font with polytonic Greek developed by the Institute for Language and Speech Processing / R.C. "Athena". (to be available in the future)
2. Polytonistis for MS-Word 97 and Polytonistis for MS-Word 2000: a commercial package by Magenta Ltd., including software and fonts.
3. Multikey: free utility and Unicode font (Aisa Unicode) for typing polytonic Greek in Word 97 or Word 2000.
4. Antioch: a shareware utility for typing Classical Greek in Word 97 or Word 2000; includes the necessary fonts; price: US$ 50.
5. Ukeys: a shareware utility that lets you customize your keyboard so that you can use the standard Unicode 64 K character set to type and edit Classical Greek easily. To work with Ukeys you need a standard Unicode program, like Word 97 or higher and a Unicode font. Price US$ 20. Unicode font is not included.
6. Athina: Unicode font with polytonic Greek.
7. CyberBase, a Unicode font with polytonic Greek developed by the Bitstream,Inc. The name of the file you should download is cyberbase.zip.
8. Arial Unicode MS.
9. Georgia Greek.
10. Caslon.
11. Code 2000.

Several fonts are available for free downloading at Microsoft typography site. You can visit this site to check if Microsoft has made the Palatino Linotype Unicode font available, which for the time being can be installed only in the Windows 2000 platform.

Non-Windows environments

If the above information does not answer your questions or you want to use the Greek language with a non-Windows platform you can try to use the information provided by the Hellenic Resources Institute at the following Web address: http://www.hri.org/fonts/. You can also try the Alan Wood's Unicode Resources web pages.

Legal note:
The list of links provided above is neither exhaustive nor is it intended to be as such. It merely aims to be an information guideline for those who are interested in finding some of the recorded solutions to the problem of computerized processing of polytonic Greek. The Institute for Language and Speech Processing (ILSP / R.C. "Athena") cannot assume any responsibility whatsoever for any possible damages or losses that will be experienced by those who will eventually make use of the links provided. ILSP / R.C. "Athena" neither pursues nor obtains any financial profit by making these links available to the Internet community. ILSP / R.C. "Athena" does not mean to provide any sort of technical support to the visitors of the links listed. Both ILSP / R.C. "Athena"'s polytonic Greek fonts are offered free of charge.

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