Author Topic: Question about Fonts (Read 1024 times)

Vladimir · « **on:** September 21, 2010, 07:40:23 PM »

This is a long shot but does anyone know of a font that you can download for free that has the "long S" character (the "s" that looks like "f')?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s

Dulcamara · « **Reply #1 on:** September 22, 2010, 01:54:28 AM »

It may be a character already available in fonts you have, simply without knowing it. I would suggest getting a font or character mapper to find out. Programs like Open Office (other than randomly turning your docuмents into pages of "##################" ) can actually access the "special characters" in a table, so that you can pick them. Otherwise they're known by crazy key combinations that I have never been able to get to produce the character they're supposedly associated with.

Other advanced word processors may also have similar features, but I don't know offhand. But you SHOULD be able to find out if it's available with your fonts, with a font/character mapper.

trad123 · « **Reply #2 on:** September 22, 2010, 02:13:17 AM »

I have Open Office 3. Just checked, and yes it has long s.

If you have Open Office 3, once you've opened up a blank page

goto Insert

3rd one down, select Special Character...

A window opens, look for subset

to the right of that select IPA Extensions

Look through the "s" category

and you'll find ʃ

select that, and click OK

trad123 · « **Reply #3 on:** September 22, 2010, 02:14:50 AM »

By the way, the special character is more curved when viewed in Open Office 3. Pasting it here changed that a little.

trad123 · « **Reply #4 on:** September 22, 2010, 02:16:54 AM »

This is what it looked like, I made the font size bigger to see it better.

trad123 · « **Reply #5 on:** September 22, 2010, 02:52:38 AM »

I've been playing around with special characters in different fonts. Changing fonts will enable different special character variations or open more types of characters available, like Chinese characters for example.

When I pasted the long s to the forum here it became less curved, that's because the forum default font is apparently Arial, not Times New Roman.

The long s version I posted in a screen shot is more like the first example in the wiki picture of the word "Congress", although I didn't place it in italics.

Trying different fonts with that special character may get you one that looks more like an f. The one you're looking for.

trad123 · « **Reply #6 on:** September 22, 2010, 03:15:49 AM »

Ah, I got it. It's under subset Latin Extended-A

the code is U+017F

I don't know how to do that though, only know ALT Codes, but it's there as a long s looking like an f.

trad123 · « **Reply #7 on:** September 22, 2010, 03:28:18 AM »

Arial font, under that code, has a good looking f-like long s character.

Open Office 3 uses Windows system wide fonts, no need to put it into its own folder like version 2. I just tested it by downloading a font called Gentium, has it's own installer.

I'm so glad now that I never bought Microsoft Office.

I've been looking at how to type sentences in Chinese characters. The nice thing about the special character menu is that you can select multiple characters before selecting OK, you can create full sentences that way.

I'm loving Open Office more and more.

Dulcamara · « **Reply #8 on:** September 22, 2010, 11:00:13 AM »

Quote from: trad123

I've been looking at how to type sentences in Chinese characters. The nice thing about the special character menu is that you can select multiple characters before selecting OK, you can create full sentences that way.

I'm loving Open Office more and more.

Look at the NJStar software. I think they have a chinese word processor, if you mean you're learning the language. However if you're NOT learning the language, and you mean typing English sentences in the Chinese "alphabet" you might want to forget that idea... Aside from the fact each each Chinese character (kanji) stands for MULTIPLE letters, each one also means a whole word or concept. Thus, you'll be typing, and heaven only knows what you might be saying!

I encountered someone attempting something like that in a tattoo parlor, claiming that the Chinese kanji each stood for one of the ABCs... Some poor fool, I'm sure, has paid good money to have something like "doghorsewaterwoman" tattooed on themselves for life, thinking they've gotten a tattoo that says Jane.