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November 2000, Week 4

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Subject:
From:
LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 22 Nov 2000 08:37:44 EST
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--- Forwarded Message from Mary Fetherston <[log in to unmask]> ---

>User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022
>Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 11:20:57 -0400
>Subject: Re: #5825.1 typesetting quest: U and I with tilde! [long and tedious] (!)
>From: Mary Fetherston <[log in to unmask]>
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information    Forum   <[log in to unmask]>
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>

------------------
Being a mac-o-phile, I hate to say this but these characters can be produced
easily on a PC.

Using Office 2000/MS Word, pull down the Insert menu and select Symbol.

Choose the Arial font.  Scroll down until you see the i and u with the
tildas.

Mary

Mary Fetherston                    [log in to unmask]
Interim Supervisor, Language Lab        401-874-4719/20
University of Rhode Island            fax: 874-4694
60 Upper College Road, Suite 3
Kingston, RI 02881


on 11/21/00 10:31 AM, LLTI-Editor at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> --- Forwarded Message from Derek Roff <[log in to unmask]> ---
> 
>> Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 13:03:45 -0700
>> From: Derek Roff <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>, David Kanig
>> <[log in to unmask]>, Ursula Williams <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: #5825 typesetting quest: U and I with tilde! [long and tedious]
>> In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
> 
>>> Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 12:36:36 -0500
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> From: David Kanig <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Subject: typesetting quest: U and I with tilde
>> 
>> We are trying to typeset a document, preferably on a Mac using Word
>> 98, that will include the name of the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa
>> Thiong'o with (something like) a tilde above the U and I.
> 
> MS-Word used to have a very simple function called "overstrike", which gave
> the user a way of combining any two or more characters from the chosen font.
> The characters would appear superimposed both on screen and on the printed
> page.  This was very handy for quickly creating special combined characters in
> a document, without searching
> for a new font.
> 
> In Word 97/98, the system is much more powerful, and practically unusable.
> It treats the overstrike as one option within an equation
> field.  I think it might solve David?s problem, and perhaps Ursula?s as well.
> This system is very user hostile and poorly documented.  In
> fact, even though I have used this trick before, and it still took me
> over an hour to dig out the details from the Word manual, Help screens, trial
> and error, and my almost useless memory.  (Perhaps this is why I don?t use
> Word anymore).  So, here is one way to print a tilde over a ?u? or an ?i? in
> Word 98 for the Mac.  It should be very similar for Word 97 on the PC,
> although the dialog boxes may look a little different.
> 
> Place your cursor where you want the u/tilde character.  From the Insert menu,
> choose insert>field.   This will open the ?Field? dialog box.  Click on
> ?Equations and Formulas? in the left ?Categories? box. Click on ?Eq? in the
> right ?Field Names? box.  The letters ?EQ? will appear in the typing box near
> the middle of this dialog box, above the word ?Description?.  Click to the
> right of the letters ?EQ? to get your cursor into the typing box.  Then type:
> \o(u,\s\up4(~))  (It
> doesn?t seem to matter whether you use upper or lower case for the formula
> elements.  Case does matter for the characters you are overstriking.) The
> whole formula should look like this:
> 
> EQ \o(u,\s\up4(~))
> 
> For a tilde over an ?i?, replace the ?u? that comes after the
> parenthesis with an ?i?:
> 
> EQ \o(i,\s\up4(~))
> 
> Click on ?OK?.  You should see the character in your document.  If you see the
> word "error," try again, and pay very close attention to the parentheses,
> slashes, etc.  I know of no way to edit or correct this kind of formula, once
> it is inserted in a document.  When I make
> a mistake, I just start over.
> 
> Here?s what is going on.  The EQ field tells Word that you are creating an
> equation.  \o is the ?overstrike switch?, which says that the two characters
> inside the parentheses will be combined in the same space.  "But", you say,
> "there are about a dozen characters inside the parentheses."  "Ah, no", says
> Uncle Bill,  "you are not thinking like a MicroSoft programmer.  There are
> only two characters within the parentheses, ?u? and ?~?.  All those other
> things are switches and parameters."  A basic overstrike would need only this:
> EQ \o(u,~)   that is, the Equation field, the overstrike switch and the two
> characters in parentheses, separated by a comma.  The problem
> is, the basic formula prints the tilde right through the middle of the ?u?,
> rather than above it.
> 
> So, we have to introduce the superscript switch.  After the comma, we
> see ?\s?, which tells Word that we want to make a superscript or a subscript.
> But which one?  The ?\up? switch says the next character in parentheses should
> appear up above the line (\do for down would give us a subscript).  The ?4? in
> ?\up4? says put the next character 4 points higher than normal.  Depending on
> the font, the size and the
> chosen characters, you might want to choose values more or less than 4.  Next
> comes the open parenthesis for the superscript switch, then our second
> character, then close parenthesis for the superscript switch and finally close
> parenthesis for the overstrike switch. Easy, huh?
> 
> I almost hate to mention this, but there may be a problem with horizontal
> alignment of the two characters.  After you?ve used the superscript switch to
> get the vertical layout that you want, you may notice that one of the
> characters is shifted slightly left or right in relation to the other.  But do
> not despair.  Uncle Bill has a solution for you:  another switch.  You can
> tell Word to align the right edge of the characters by using the \ar switch.
> Align center with the \ac switch.  This is what you get if you don?t use any
> alignment switch, so you may never need it.  Align the left side of the
> characters with the \al switch.  The ?u and tilde? combination looks better on
> my screen with the ?\ar? switch.  The whole formula would be:
> 
> EQ \o\ar(u,\s\up4(~))
> 
> If you experiment with these align switches, print out the results. You will
> likely find that the alignment on the screen is slightly different than what
> you get on the printed page.
> 
> 
> So there you have it- a complex, flexible, hard to use tool.  The good news is
> that after you have created the character once, you can copy, cut and paste it
> wherever you like.  You don?t have to retype
> the formula every time your special character appears in your document.
> 
> Derek
> 
> 
> Derek Roff
> Language Learning Center, Ortega Hall Rm 129, University of New Mexico
> Albuquerque, NM 87131  505/277-4804 fax 505/277-3885
> Internet: [log in to unmask]

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