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I'm on WIN 7. I found that windows is using ANSI, not ASCII. So when I type ALT + 224 i get Ó, instead of α. To get α I have to manually copy it from the windows character map every time I want to use it. As you can imagine, this gets very tedious when I am trying to type in Attic Greek. Is there no combination to enter α? If not, is there some solution to this?
irikkkkk
Posted 2012-07-15T04:04:09.963
Reputation: 83
9
As you have already discovered, the characters resulting from character codes between 0 and 255 depend entirely on the encoding that is used.
Windows doesn't use neither extended ASCII nor ANSI (usually Windows-1252); it actually depends on the application.
For example, Alt + (2, 2, 4) gives on my machine:
α in Notepad and on the command prompt.
à in Google Chrome's omnibox, but α in its console and this very text area.
In Notepad++, a with ANSI, α with UTF-8.
For a more consistent behavior, just use Unicode character codes:
The key combination Alt + (9, 4, 5) – or Alt + (+, 3, B, 1) if you set the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\EnableHexNumpad to 1 – should result in a α in every application that supports that character.
Sadly, that isn't the case:
The decimal char code results in ▒ in IE's address bar, while the hexadecimal one just beeps.
The decimal char code results in ▒ in Notepad++ with ANSI and ¦ with UTF-8.
The hexadecimal char code results in a in Notepad++ with ANSI and α with UTF-8.
Set HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\EnableHexNumpad to 1.
Use Alt + (9, 4, 5) or Alt + (+, 3, B, 1) in applications with full Unicode support.
Fall back to trial and error in applications that lack full Unicode support.
Dennis
Posted 2012-07-15T04:04:09.963
Reputation: 42 934
Have you tried prefixing with a 0? Ie. ALT-0224 gives à consistently (here), but ALT-224 gives Ó (position 224 in DOS-Western Europe code page). [I don't have the hexadecimal entry set.] As I understand it the zero prefix forces interpretation as a Unicode code point. – Richard – 2012-07-15T07:45:59.267
1The 0 is used to indicate a Unicode character when the char code is ambiguous, which is only needed between 0 and 255 with our code pages (although 0 - 127 will always be ASCII). [Alt] - 0945 will result in ±: Since the 0 is out of place here, the application falls back to non-Unicode and wraps at 256 (i.e., 256 is congruent to 0, 257 to 2, etc.). ± char code is 177, where 945 = 3 * 256 + 177. – Dennis – 2012-07-15T12:20:47.780
1
I found a solution that worked for me.
Initially, the "Current language for non-Unicode programs" was set to "English (United Kingdom)" on the computer in Region → Administrative settings; however, when I changed it to "English (United States)" and restarted the computer.
I finally started to get "α" when I hit Alt 224. No more "Ó". I've attached an image of the settings location.
Chris
Posted 2012-07-15T04:04:09.963
Reputation: 11
Do you want to type in greek? – soandos – 2012-07-15T04:07:35.530
I'm using windows and I get α. – cutrightjm – 2012-07-15T04:09:02.110
Are you using WIN7? I might have been different on vista or xp. – irikkkkk – 2012-07-15T04:13:35.600
@irikkkkk, what OS are you using? – soandos – 2012-07-15T04:41:20.870
@soandros, windows 7 – irikkkkk – 2012-07-15T04:46:08.213