Foreign fonts table

Symbols and diacritics in Windows

International keyboard

Fonts and keyboards: the basics

The standard computer keyboard has around 100 keys and 256 different possible 8-bit codes it can send to the computer. 26 of those keys and 52 of those codes are occupied by the letters of the English alphabet; another 10 keys and codes are occupied by numbers 0-9. Another 29 codes and 21 keys are occupied by symbols and punctuation. Then there’s the 12 function keys and another 27 operation keys (Shift, space bar, tab, etc.). That leaves little space for other symbols and characters. In fact, the letters of only major western European languages have computer codes included in the 256 that your keyboard can send to the computer.

The codes your keyboard sends to the computer (e.g. 0065 for the letter A) are converted into symbols on your screen and printer by computer fonts which are tables that convert the code 0098, for example, into b or b or b or b or b or b or b or b or b or , depending which font you select.

Control keys occupy keyboard codes 0000-0031. English-language letters, numerals and standard symbols occupy most keyboard codes between 0032 and 0127. Codes 0128-0255 are covered by more symbols and by diacritical characters used in major western European languages (Á È Î Õ Ü Å, etc.).

Computer keyboards only have 26 standard letter keys (A-Z), equivalent to 52 codes (Shift for capitals). They only have another 20 normal keys (numbers and symbols), equivalent to 40 codes, including those produced in Shift mode. There are only two ways for a computer to generate other symbols.

1. The keyboard can be mapped so that existing keys can produce any character with a code number less than 256. The AltGr key can be used to access those values (ç, š, ö, â, ñ, etc.) as can dead-key combinations (e.g. ` followed by e to produce è). This potential is at the base of the multilingual keyboard you will find here. Such keyboard layouts can save a lot of trouble.

2. Many fonts provide tables interpreting codes from the keyboard in ways that do not just provide aesthetic variants of the same letter. For example, in the Opus Text font lower-case q (code 0113) produces a crotchet or quarter-note, e (0101) a quaver or eighth-note, lower-case b (0098) a flat sign () etc. Characters in Eastern European languages as well as Greek, Russian, Arab, Hindi and Thai characters, for example, all have codes with numbers above 256, so fonts are the only way for your computer to produce those symbols. It is worth noting that neither , nor figure among the 2,000-odd Unicode character symbols listed in Windows. In short, an international keyboard and extra fonts are the only ways in which you will be to produce a satisfactory range of characters and symbols in the texts you write on your computer.

It is more than likely that you will have to install an international keyboard on your computer. It is absolutely certain that you will need to install specialist music fonts. You can learn here how to use music fonts in your Word texts.