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Conference tallis::celt

Title:Celt Notefile
Moderator:TALLIS::DARCY
Created:Wed Feb 19 1986
Last Modified:Tue Jun 03 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1632
Total number of notes:20523

694.0. "Word Processing for Welsh" by IOSG::HUGHES () Tue Dec 12 1989 11:02

This is a request on behalf of my mother who has just bought an 
Amstrad 2086 to do some word processing.  Her main task is 
translating various forms and documents from English into Welsh.

At the moment she is having a few problems with some of the Welsh 
characters.  Does anyone know if it is possible to get a word
processing package that contains Welsh characters? , e.g. 'y' and
'w' with a ^ (circumflex) on top.

Or would it be possible to redefine some of the keys instead?
If so, how would you set about doing this?

If anyone has any experience of word processing in Welsh, or
any good ideas I'd be most grateful if you'd include them here.

Thanks

Catrin

P.S. At the moment my mother has Lotus symphony and Wordstar Express
but she is willing to buy a different package if appropriate.

T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
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694.1Should be possible without too much troubleFORTY2::DONOVANWed Dec 13 1989 10:1322
	Hello, the 'y' and 'w' circumflex characters don't appear in any of
	the standard DEC, IBM or ISO character sets. There may be some
	specific welsh language software which includes these characters but
	I don't know of anything.
	
	The standard way of producing characters which aren't part of the
	normal set is by using 'composite' characters which are really two
	characters printed on top of each other. The success of this depends
	a lot on the printer, since typefaces vary a lot and sometimes it
	just ends up looking a mess. 
	
	What you need is an editor that will let you produce these
	'overstrike' characters (and a printer that can print them); I expect
	you can find a way of doing that with most packages with a little
        trickery, like getting it to insert a 'backspace' character into the
        file. What package is your mother using ? Is it WordStar ?  
	
	(You can also do this with WPS-PLUS / ALL-IN-1, but I don't expect
	you mum will stump up for a VAX just to get this !)
	
	John
694.2more details pleaseIOSG::HUGHESCatrin HughesWed Dec 13 1989 13:2518
Hi John!

At the moment my mum has Wordstar Express (without the manual - not very useful)
and also Lotus symphony which has some word processing.

She is thinking about buying a new package probably Wordstar or Wordperfect,
but is a bit hesitant as she is unsure about how to go about 'adapting' it
to type the Welsh characters. 

If you could put some basic instructions here (neither of us have mush of a clue 
about computers!) I could pass them on to her and put her out of her misery!

The printer she has is pretty good so I don't think the printing the characters 
would be a problem.

Thanks in advance...

Catrin
694.3How to do a Welsh accent !FORTY2::DONOVANThu Dec 14 1989 10:5429
	Hello Catrin; based on a very old Wordstar manual the key which
	allows you to overstrike characters is CONTROL+H (press the CONTROL
	key and H key together to get this).
	
	So, to get 'w circumflex' you would enter:
	
	w (CONTROL+H) ^
	
	As I said before this will look funny on the screen but should print
	OK. I don't know if in Welsh the capitals of these letters can also
	have the accents (W circumflex for example). The reason I mention
	them is because the ^ will probably blot out some of the W, since
	the W is taller than the w (I don't know how much sense this is
	making !).
	
	Anyway for capital letters you may get better results by
	'superscripting' the ^ character so that it doesn't print in the
	middle of the W (superscripting just means printing it a bit higher
	up the page). The superscript key is CONTROL+T and it switches
	superscripting on and off. To superscript the ^, you would enter:
	
	W (CONTROL+H)(CONTROL+T) ^ (CONTROL+T)
	
	The second CONTROL+T cancels the superscripting. Good luck with all
	this ! (I used to be in the IOSG group by the way but I'm now
	working in DEC Park II on the mail products)
	
	John	
694.4a welsh locoscriptCOMICS::HWILLIAMSFri Jan 05 1990 13:0815
    Just out of interest, I've heard of the existence of a welsh version
    of "locoscript" (the WP package supplied for the Z80 base amstrad
    PCW 8256 & 8512)
    
    But I dunno anything about PCs
    
    Incidentally a circumflex can be used on any vowel in the welsh
    language, the effect is to elongate pronounciation of that vowel.
    The vowels in welsh are: 
                              A E I O U W Y 
    
    This probably doesn't help but it might interest someone.
    
    Huw Williams.