Tools Menu
The Tools menu includes the following options.
Symbol Table
The Symbol Table option is used for inserting special characters and diacritics. The Symbol Table simplifies the entry of special characters and diacritics by allowing you to highlight, select, and insert the desired character or diacritic using the mouse or a key sequence typed on the keyboard.
If the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols is selected for entering characters, the Character list and Language field in the Symbol Table window can be used to help identify the character you want to insert.
To use the Symbol Table, do the following.
|
1
|
Place the insertion point (cursor) in the field or text box where you want to insert a special character (such as in a subfield of a title record). |
Note: If you want to use the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set, place the insertion point immediately following the character to which you want to add a diacritic. Unlike the larger Diacritics and Symbols code set in which you select combinations of letters and diacritics, the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols includes diacritics that are applied to the letter you enter from the keyboard. Go to the notes at the end of this topic if you want to enter ligatures, paired diacritics, and multiple diacritics.
|
2
|
Do one of the following. |
|
•
|
On the Tools menu, click Symbol Table. |
|
•
|
On the keyboard, press ALT+T+S. |
The Symbol Table window opens.
|
3
|
In the Select Code Set list, select a character code set. The default selection is the first option in the list, which is ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols. Go to Loaded Character Sets for a list of character sets that may be available for selection. |
|
4
|
In the Customize Font field, use the Font Chooser Gadget to select the font used by the Symbol Table. The default font is Arial Unicode MS. |
Note: See the notes at the end of this topic for Unicode font recommendations.
|
5
|
In the Symbol Table window, do one of the following. |
|
•
|
If you are using the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols, select the name of the diacritic mark or symbol from the Character list. Click Insert or press ALT+O (oh) to insert the character and leave the Symbol Table window open, or click Insert and Close or press ALT+B to insert the character and close the Symbol Table window. |
|
•
|
Select with the mouse or press Tab to until you highlight the character you want to insert, and press Enter. The character displays at the insertion point, and the Symbol Table window remains open. |
|
•
|
Double-click the character you want to insert. The character displays at the insertion point, and the Symbol Table window remains open. |
|
•
|
Select the character you want to insert, and click Insert, or press ALT+O (oh). The character displays at the insertion point, and the Symbol Table window remains open. |
|
•
|
Select the character you want to insert, and click Insert and Close, or press ALT+B. The character displays at the insertion point, and the Symbol Table window closes. |
|
6
|
When you finish inserting characters and the Symbol Table window is still open, click Close or press ALT+C to exit the Symbol Table. |
Things To Consider
The following is a list special considerations when using the Symbol Table.
|
•
|
When multiple windows mode is used, and the Symbol Table is open but displays behind a window other than a wizard Properties window that was opened from the wizard’s right-click menu, the table can be brought to the front. Point to the Windows menu, then point to Active, and select Symbol Table, or press ALT+D, A, and the underlined letter for the Symbol Table option displayed in the opened menu (usually S, but may be other letters if more than one Symbol Table window is open, or if wizard windows beginning with the letter S are open). |
|
•
|
To enter special characters on a wizard Properties window, select the Wizard Startup option in the wizard properties so the Properties window will display as the first window when the wizard opens. You may then open the Symbol Table window by selecting Symbol Table from the Tools menu, or by pressing ALT+T+S. If you open the Properties window by selecting Properties from the wizard’s right-click menu, the Symbol Table window will not display on top of the Properties window when you open it, and you cannot make the table display on top of the Properties window by pointing to Active, and selecting Symbol Table, or by pressing ALT+D, A, and the underlined letter for the Symbol Table option displayed in the opened menu. |
|
•
|
If you want to insert special characters and diacritics from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set, you may also use certain Client Keyboard Shortcuts. |
|
•
|
When using the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols, you can quickly see which characters in the set are used for a particular language by selecting the language in the Language list. All of the characters used by the selected language are highlighted in the set. |
|
•
|
When using the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set, enter ligatures, paired diacritics, and multiple diacritics from the letter and moving left to right, bottom to top. |
For example, to enter an A with dot below and a grave above, type the letter A, then enter the dot below from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set, then enter the grave above from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set.
For example, to enter “ng” as a ligature, type the letter N, then enter the left ligature from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set, then type the letter G, then enter the right ligature from the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols set.
|
•
|
The font selection you make in the Customize Font field is saved and used for future WorkFlows client sessions. |
|
•
|
To have as full a full range of characters and symbols as possible available to you on a Windows PC, SirsiDynix recommends using Microsoft’s Arial Unicode MS font. The Arial MS Unicode font supports more Unicode characters than any other font at this time — approximately 45,000 of the 100,000 plus Unicode characters, which, in many instances, is sufficient. Other Unicode fonts are available and can be used. For example, Code2000 is a shareware font that supports approximately 34,000 Unicode characters. So, the Code2000 font would be good sometimes, but would not be ideal other times because it has 12,000 less Unicode characters than Arial Unicode MS font. The Arial Unicode MS font is delivered with version 2000 or higher of any of the following programs running on Windows 2000: Access, Excel, FrontPage, Office, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher or Word. To install Unicode fonts, see FAQs: Installing Microsoft’s Unicode Fonts. |
Additionally, to input Unicode characters, you must add keyboard drivers for the different language keyboards you will be using. Go to FAQs: Adding Keyboard Layouts in Windows 2000.
|
•
|
To insert symbols into fields in WorkFlows, you must customize fonts to use a Unicode font. On the Preference menu, point to Desktop and click Font Settings. If you have installed the MicroSoft Unicode fonts, select the Arial Unicode MS in the Font column of the Font Chooser. If you are in the process of modifying a value when you change fonts, you need to close the record and begin again. |
Loaded Character Sets
The Loaded Character Sets option allows you to select only those character sets you will be dealing with on the desktop. The WorkFlows character translation tables support a large number of character translations, including Unicode characters. As a result, if all character sets are downloaded to the desktop, the client startup will take longer. When you select only those character sets you will use, the speed of client startup will improve.
This feature is not available when running the WorkFlows client in offline mode.
Select or clear the following check boxes.
|
•
|
ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols |
If you are using a Unicode system, the following additional character set check boxes display. Keep in mind that the more characters sets selected for downloading to the desktop, the longer the client startup time.
|
•
|
Chinese, Japanese, Korean (EACC) |
If no check boxes are selected, the ALA Character Set of Diacritics and Symbols is downloaded to the desktop by default.
Related topics
Special Characters and Diacritics
Font Chooser Gadget
ALA Character Set Keyboard Shortcuts
FAQs: Adding Keyboard Layouts in Windows 2000
FAQs: Installing Microsoft’s Unicode Fonts
© 2006, 2014 SirsiDynix