Rod Decker has compiled a list of typical fonts that support Polytonic Greek. Under normal circumstances you should pick the font that is most convenient, but for things you expect to reuse or publish, I recommend Gentium or SBL.
Mar 012012
- Image via Wikipedia
There is a new Unicode Polytonic Greek font available for all you font collectors out there. Rod Decker has the details and download instructions. His post is so complete, there is not much need for me to add to it.
The basic idea: this font supports a very wide range of characters—Hebrew glyphs, for example–but is not as professional looking as (my still-standing recommendation) Gentium (or GentiumAlt).
If you are clueless regarding this discussion, but want to better understand fonts and right way to type in Greek, start with this post by yours truly.
May 112009
I have written a series of guides on best practices for typing in Greek. The trick is to use Unicode. Though it requires some initial struggle the payoff is enormous, and will save you frustration down the road.
There is a new guide out for Linux users, and it looks excellent (pretty pictures). Find that here.
For Windows setup follow this guide. For fonts, check out my review here. And if you need a font with text-critical glyphs, try this.
Apr 292009
- Image via Wikipedia
Are you using Unicode to type in ancient Greek (if not, follow this guide)? Do your prefer OpenOffice to Microsoft Office? Well today is the day where it all pays off. There is only one Word Processor in the world that spell-checks ancient Greek, and that’s OpenOffice. You can set it up by installing this plugin for OpenOffice 2.4 or higher.
It’s been a long time coming, but SBL has finally released their promised Greek Font. The download page is here, or you can download it directly here. There is also a Hebrew font.
The fonts work in all Operating Systems (Windows, Linux, Mac). They are not open-source (so a couple of other fonts are still my top recommendations), but they are free to use:
SBL fonts are made available without cost to individual scholars for non-profit use. Commercial use by publishers is reserved for members of the SBL Font Foundation.
If you haven’t already set up your keyboard to support Unicode Greek, follow my guide (for Macs go here, or for Linux here).
SBL’s Biblical Font FAQ is also worth a read. If you’re not already familiar with the advantages of Unicode (as described, for example, in my guide), you may find their explanation of interest:
Why should I bother with a Unicode font? Isn’t it easier to keep using the fonts I have used for years?
With older, non-Unicode fonts, character glyphs were simply mapped over Roman characters. So, with SPEzra for example, pushing “b” displays a bet, and “[” displays an ayin. However, the computer understands these characters as “b” and “[.” Thus, when the document is transferred to a computer that does not have that specific font installed, the computer displays those characters.
Unicode seeks to allow for transfer of encoded documents between platforms and independent of fonts. So, if a document is typed using one Unicode font, it will also be viewable using another Unicode font. Likewise if the font is not installed, the computer simply defaults to its normal Unicode font. If one wants to use a different font for aesthetic (or other) reasons, one can change the font just like one would do with English. Additionally, the computer understands the characters to be the ones that the screen displays. So, an ayin both displays as an ayin and is encoded that way. This makes cross-platform text transfers and searches possible, because texts can be encoded with the characters in which they are written. Even though learning to switch to and use keyboard layouts for other languages takes a little bit of time to learn, the benefits of Unicode more than make up for this small initial investment of time and effort.
HT: Rod Decker
If you ever type in Greek, Hebrew, or any other language that requires special characters, then you need to make sure you are using a Unicode font. I have written up a pretty thorough guide to using Unicode fonts in Windows and/or Linux, but my Mac knowledge is flaky. If you’re a Mac user and are interested in typing in Greek or Hebrew then follow this guide.
Regardless of your operating system you might also be interested in my introduction to Unicode.
Rod Decker and Danny Zacharias have reported about a new unicode Greek font that will be of particular interest to those that need text-critical glyphs. From Zacharias’s blog:
I’ve just been made aware of an excellent Greek unicode font that is the most thorough I have ever come across. Designed for the papyrologist and text-critical scholar in mind. The font is called IFAO-Grec and can be downloaded at the bottom of this page. You will see also a documentation page, which lists all of the extra characters available.
You can download the font here.
Rod Decker mentioned in a comment that the font is offered free of licensing constraints:
The only statements I can find re. licensing issues is that “IFAO-Grec Unicode is issued free of all rights” and: “Elle est gratuite et libre de droits” (~ “It is free and free of copyright”). There does not appear to be any reference to any of the “Open” licenses.
This is not quite the protection I would recommend (see my post about Greek font recommendations) but if you need a full text-critical arsenal, this might be a good option.
For most of us, however, some other open-licensed Unicode font might be preferable. Check out my guide for more information and font recommendations for Greek (and Hebrew).
Awhile back I posted a four-part series on the advantages of Unicode for typing out Biblical Greek and Hebrew. I am linking these posts here so those interested have a one-stop shop for the whole series.
These posts provide a detailed but understandable explanation of what Unicode is, how to set up Greek and Hebrew Unicode keyboards, and what Fonts work best for each language. Enjoy.
The “How to Type in Greek” series of posts is designed to help you set-up your computer to type Ancient (Polytonic) Greek using a Unicode Font. Be sure to check out Part I (on Unicode), II (on setting up Windows), and III (on recommended Fonts).
Introduction
This post is designed to show Linux users how to set-up a Polytonic Greek keyboard, with particular attention to Ubuntu. The goal is that our keyboard will function identically regardless of Desktop Environment or application—QT and GTK should each work flawlessly, and both KOffice and OpenOffice.org (as well as any other native Linux applications) should generate identical Greek characters. Once your keyboard is setup you will be able to dynamically switch between Greek and English in any application.
Before getting started you may want to read two previous posts in this series. (1) This post explains the advantages of Unicode and its usefulness (and necessity) for typing in Greek. (2) Once you have your keyboard setup, you will need to read through this post to find an open-source Greek font that implements all the necessary bells and whistles for typing in Ancient Greek (all the fonts listed are compatible with Linux).
A Guide by Vern Poythress
The most important resource for Polytonic Greek in Linux is this guide by Vern Poythress of Westminster Seminary. This is an excellent guide, complete with links and special files that will help you get the perfect setup. The only difficulty is that it is not distribution specific. In general this is a good thing, but I ran into problems with Ubuntu due to their default input method under 8.04, and the setup is much easier in 8.10. If you have problems with the steps below, follow Poythress’s guide.
Ubuntu 8.10
Polytonic Greek works out of the box in Ubuntu 8.10, much to my surprise (see the comments to this post; thanks Simos). To get it working, right click on your panel and add the keyboard indicator. Next, right click on your new keyboard indicator and choose “Keyboard preferences.” 
This will bring up a dialog. Choose the layouts tab, then the Plus button. You choose your layout by Country then by Variant. You want “Greece” and the “Polytonic.”
That’s it. Everything should be working, though you may want to follow Poythress’s guide to tweak your keyboard layout a bit. If your would prefer to use SCIM, which is a different Input Method particularly useful for complex characters (and which might solve problems with compatibility issues), follow the guide below on Ubuntu 8.04.
Ubuntu 8.04: How to Set Up SCIM
Ubuntu, and several other GNOME-heavy distributions (like Fedora), do not use SCIM by default, which is the preferred input method for complex characters (accents and the like). You will therefore have to set it up manually, which is not difficult. Here are the steps I used for Ubuntu:
The latest versions of Ubuntu provide a pretty simple way of doing this. You just need to set a couple of language options. 
You need to allow for complex character creation. System –> Administration –> Language Support. Check the box for “Enable support to Enter Complex Characters.” This tells X.org that you want to use SCIM, rather than the default input method. You do NOT need to install anything else, so ignore any notices that tells you otherwise, and don’t select any languages. You are only concerned about characters and keyboards. Now you will need to restart.
When GNOME boots up again, there will be a little keyboard icon in your taskbar. Right-click on this icon and select SCIM Setup. Go to “Global Setup.” You should see a list of various Input Methods. You need “Other – English/European” . Check that box, Apply, then close out of the dialog. You may need to restart again, but it shouldn’t be necessary. 
You will now be able to use the keyboard icon to select the preferred Input Method. I have English/European set as default, but you can always move between different methods if you like. Just click on the Keyboard icon, and select what you want to use. Whenever you type in Greek you will need to be using “English/European” in order to get all the accents.
Moving to SCIM as the defult input manager may result in a couple of problems
(1) You may loose some shortcut features in Nautilus as a result of certain SCIM implementations. Nautilus allows you to type to select folders and files, and with SCIM this might no longer work. There is an easy fix, however. At the command line, type: im-switch -c . Select scim-immodule. Restart your x-server and you should be good to go.
(2) Regardless of distribution, you will need to install extra software if you use Virtualization technology, such as VirtualBox or VMWare.
For Ubuntu (or other Debian-based distributions) search for and install scim-bridge-client-qt and scim-bridge-client-qt4 in Synaptic, or just type the following in a Terminal:
sudo apt-get install scim-bridge-client-qt scim-bridge-client-qt4
All Distrubutions: Setting up your Keyboard
Now that you have SCIM set up and everything else working, you can install your Greek keyboard. Right click on the gnome panel and select “Add to Panel.” Select “Keyboard Indicator” and close out of the dialog. 
Right click on your new panel item (which probably says something like “USA”) and select the “Preferences” option. Click the “Layout” tab, then add a new layout. You need to add the “Greece” keyboard and the “Polytonic” variant. You can now switch to the Greek Keyboard layout by clicking on this panel dialog, or you can set a keyboard shortcut for alternating between keyboard layouts (I have keyboard-switching set to the Caps Lock key).
These steps provide you with all the necessary fundamentals for enabling Polytonic Greek in Ubuntu (or other distributions). But this is Linux, so the customization options are endless. You can, for example, remap certain keys so that they are more intuitive (such as the breathing marks). For this, and other hand tricks, follow Poythress’s guide, start with the section on “Adding Keymaps.” You can skip the section about the “Compose” file, which is unnecesary once you have SCIM working.
Enjoy all the polytonic goodness!
Logos software is up with the times. From their blog:
Most of us still use desktop applications when we want to do serious work, but web applications are improving rapidly and fast becoming viable alternatives, at least when it comes to basic functionality. Desktop applications simply can’t compete with the convenience of being able to access your data from any computer connected to the web.
So they have launched the Beta of Bible.Logos.com , which looks pretty fantastic. The fonts are easy to read and the site is well laid out. Searching is similarly simple and responsive. Switching between versions is quick and easy, and there are many versions to choose from, including a variety of Greek texts.
The Greek features are fairly limited in comparison with The Resurgence Greek Project (see my review of that site), and while the interface is easy to use, searching is not yet very advanced. The Greek text is Unicode compliant, which is a good thing.
The big feature is promised integration with the recently released RefTagger, which allows you to automatically create bible-verse popups on your blog.
Logos’s recent contributions to Bible software are encouraging and important; finally a company is working hard to bring biblical research into the modern age. For more information, check out the full post on their blog.
