Test Please: Ancient Greek Unix Fonts??

[Andrew]

Hi,

I have set a small sample of Ancient Greek that I was hoping an
obliging Linux user and an obliging Mac user could have a look at to
see if it renders ok. Screen capture would be great:

http://www.andrews-corner.org/ancient_greek.html#greektest

I have tentatively set the fonts for the Greek at:

Windows: "palatino linotype", "Vusillus Old Face" ,Vusillus,"Arial
Unicode MS",

Macintosh:"Lucida Grande",

Linux: Porson, "Athena Unicode", Gentium;

Windows and Mac should be ok but I am definitely not sure about the
choice and order of the Unix fonts.

Thanks to anybody who can help!

Andrew.

 

[carolyn]

Hi,

I have set a small sample of Ancient Greek that I was hoping an
obliging Linux user and an obliging Mac user could have a look at to
see if it renders ok. Screen capture would be great:

Here is the screen capture. I hope it helps!

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreekSample.png

Carolyn

 

[Dave Kelly]

Andrew wrote:
Linspire 5.059 - Gem Monitor - resolution 1280 x 1024


http://home.earthlink.net/~daveekelly/report-420012.png

 

[Sally Thompson]

Hi,

I have set a small sample of Ancient Greek that I was hoping an
obliging Linux user and an obliging Mac user could have a look at to
see if it renders ok. Screen capture would be great:

http://www.andrews-corner.org/ancient_greek.html#greektest

I have tentatively set the fonts for the Greek at:

Windows: "palatino linotype", "Vusillus Old Face" ,Vusillus,"Arial
Unicode MS",

Macintosh:"Lucida Grande",

Linux: Porson, "Athena Unicode", Gentium;

Windows and Mac should be ok but I am definitely not sure about the
choice and order of the Unix fonts.

Here you are Andrew. All on a Mac:
http://www.sallysweb.co.uk/andrewfirefox.jpg
http://www.sallysweb.co.uk/andrewopera.jpg
http://www.sallysweb.co.uk/andrewcamino.jpg
http://www.sallysweb.co.uk/andrewsafari.jpg

No doubt you can guess which browser is which and they all render the
Greek script OK.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

I have set a small sample of Ancient Greek that I was hoping an
obliging Linux user and an obliging Mac user could have a look at to
see if it renders ok. Screen capture would be great:

http://www.andrews-corner.org/ancient_greek.html#greektest - -
Windows and Mac should be ok

Well, using Windows, I can see all the characters, but I'm not
typographically happy with the appearance. The text seems to get displayed
in Palatino Linotype, which looks partly odd. Some letters (especially
lowercase alpha but also epsilon, pi and omega) are slanted, as if they were
in italics, whereas many other characters are quite upright. This creates a
somewhat unpleasant, if not slightly nauseating effect.

I don't have any suggestion for improvement, since Arial Unicode MS is even
worse for Greek, and there aren't many other fonts that support all of
polytonic Greek.

Maybe this is one of the cases where it would be best to let the user make
the choice, even though this often means that the choice is chosen more or
less "randomly" (the user accepts what he sees, at least unless it's really
bad) and may even involve a mixture of fonts. I'm not sure whether an
author's guess would generally be an improvement.

 

[Toby Inkster]

http://www.andrews-corner.org/ancient_greek.html#greektest

Opera 9, Linux:
http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/it_s_all_greek_to_me.png

I have tentatively set the fonts for the Greek at:
Linux: Porson, "Athena Unicode", Gentium;

I don't have any of those fonts on my system -- the text in question seems
to render in "Palatino Linotype". A better choice would probably be
"Bitstream Vera Sans" which has a good Greek repetoire and is almost
universally included with recent Linux distributions. Feel free to put it
right at the front of your font list as virtually no Windows or Mac
machines will have it installed.

 

[Andrew]

Here is the screen capture. I hope it helps!

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreekSample.png

Carolyn

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks very much for that! Your browser actually broke the text, so I
have a little more work to do! Looks like it spat the dummy with every
single accent and breathing mark and placed a box instead.

"Bitstream Vera Sans" has been suggested to me so I have added this in
the hope that the Linux browsers will have a bit more success

If you have the time, and I know I am pushing it a little here, can
you have one more look for me with the new font added?

Thanks very much for your trouble,

Andrew.

 

[Andrew]

Andrew wrote:
Linspire 5.059 - Gem Monitor - resolution 1280 x 1024


http://home.earthlink.net/~daveekelly/report-420012.png

Hi Dave,

Thanks very much for that. I could not quite identify the OS you are
using from the screenshot? Renders the Greek text perfectly though.


Thanks for your trouble,

Andrew.

 

[Andrew]

Here you are Andrew. All on a Mac:
http://www.sallysweb.co.uk/andrewfirefox.jpg
http://www.sallysweb.co.uk/andrewopera.jpg
http://www.sallysweb.co.uk/andrewcamino.jpg
http://www.sallysweb.co.uk/andrewsafari.jpg

No doubt you can guess which browser is which and they all render the
Greek script OK.

Hi Sally,

Thanks for that very comprehensive set of captures!! Looks like Mac &
Windows are ok, just a few nagging problems with Linux. I am trying to
avoid pdf greek texts which I have used before, it is just a bit
tricky makinig the Greek readable on all OSs.

Thanks very much,

Andrew.

 

[Andrew]

Well, using Windows, I can see all the characters, but I'm not
typographically happy with the appearance. The text seems to get displayed
in Palatino Linotype, which looks partly odd. Some letters (especially
lowercase alpha but also epsilon, pi and omega) are slanted, as if they were
in italics, whereas many other characters are quite upright. This creates a
somewhat unpleasant, if not slightly nauseating effect.

I don't have any suggestion for improvement, since Arial Unicode MS is even
worse for Greek, and there aren't many other fonts that support all of
polytonic Greek.

Maybe this is one of the cases where it would be best to let the user make
the choice, even though this often means that the choice is chosen more or
less "randomly" (the user accepts what he sees, at least unless it's really
bad) and may even involve a mixture of fonts. I'm not sure whether an
author's guess would generally be an improvement.

Hi Jukka,

Thanks very much for your comments. Palatino Linotype unfortunately
is the most widely available and clearest of fonts for Ancient Greek
in the Windows OS. I agree totally with the slanting effect seen to
the font, have a look at a well established Ancient Greek site that
uses Palatino Linotype, same effect:

http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/eyripedes/medea/medeae1.htm

Oddly enough this site specifies Verdana for the Modern Greek
translation but this renders the accents poorly and there are no
breathing marks.

Still a battle to render Ancient Greek well I guess,

Thanks for your trouble,

Andrew.

 

[Andrew]

Opera 9, Linux:
http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/it_s_all_greek_to_me.png


I don't have any of those fonts on my system -- the text in question seems
to render in "Palatino Linotype". A better choice would probably be
"Bitstream Vera Sans" which has a good Greek repetoire and is almost
universally included with recent Linux distributions. Feel free to put it
right at the front of your font list as virtually no Windows or Mac
machines will have it installed.

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your trouble. I have taken your suggestion and placed
"Bitstream Vera Sans" at the head of the CSS list. Could I trouble you
for one more look at the page with this font? After this I think the
problem is mostly solved, just the hassle of actually typing the stuff


Thanks very much for your trouble,

Andrew.

 

[Toby Inkster]

Andrew wrote:

http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/it_s_all_greek_to_me2.png

Hi Tony,

Hi Andreus

Could I trouble you for one more look at the page with this font?

Much nicer.
http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/it_s_all_greek_to_me2.png

You could have made things much easier for yourself if you'd chosen the
Aeneid as a source.

 

[Toby Inkster]

Thanks very much for that! Your browser actually broke the text, so I
have a little more work to do! Looks like it spat the dummy with every
single accent and breathing mark and placed a box instead.

Carolyn's browser will still have problems no matter which font you use.
Konqueror seems to have problems with the "Extended Greek" unicode range,
only displaying the characters found in the "Greek and Coptic" range. This
is a browser bug, and no amount of fiddling with fonts will fix it.

Unicode: Greek and Coptic
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/greek.html

Unicode: Greek Extended
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/greek_extended.html

 

[Dylan Parry]

I could not quite identify the OS you are using from the screenshot?

Well the desktop he was using appeared to be KDE (the style of the clock
in the bottom-right was a dead giveaway). The actual OS doesn't really
matter though as the browser was Firefox, which isn't OS dependent.

 

[Andrew]

Andrew wrote:

http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/it_s_all_greek_to_me2.png


Hi Andreus


Much nicer.
http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/it_s_all_greek_to_me2.png

You could have made things much easier for yourself if you'd chosen the
Aeneid as a source.

Hi Tony,

Thanks again for that, I now have more of an idea of what I am up
against. Interestingly enough the "Bitstream Vera Sans" font certainly
looks pretty good but it does not show any breathing marks (the small
marks before words commencing with a vowel that indicate rough or
silent breathing) or marks of elision (where vowels have been
omitted).

You can see an example in the second word of the quote, your first png
(?Palatino) shows the breathing mark but not the second
(Bitstream...).

Latin certainly would be easier!!

Thanks again,

Andrew.

 

[carolyn]

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks very much for that! Your browser actually broke the text, so I
have a little more work to do! Looks like it spat the dummy with every
single accent and breathing mark and placed a box instead.

"Bitstream Vera Sans" has been suggested to me so I have added this in
the hope that the Linux browsers will have a bit more success

If you have the time, and I know I am pushing it a little here, can
you have one more look for me with the new font added?

Thanks very much for your trouble,

Andrew.

I do have the time, and I will take it a step further. As Toby stated, it
seems to be a konqueror issue, not a linux issue. Firefox, Epophany, and
Opera all seem to work just fine. My two text browsers choke on it too,
but that is probably a matter of what fonts are available to those
browsers.

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Konqueror.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Firefox.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Epiphany.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Opera.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Lynx.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Links.png

Good luck,

Carolyn

 

[carolyn]

Carolyn's browser will still have problems no matter which font you use.
Konqueror seems to have problems with the "Extended Greek" unicode range,
only displaying the characters found in the "Greek and Coptic" range. This
is a browser bug, and no amount of fiddling with fonts will fix it.

Thank you for the information. I haven't needed it, but now I am forewarned
if I ever run across it.

Carolyn

 

[Andrew]

I do have the time, and I will take it a step further. As Toby stated, it
seems to be a konqueror issue, not a linux issue. Firefox, Epophany, and
Opera all seem to work just fine. My two text browsers choke on it too,
but that is probably a matter of what fonts are available to those
browsers.

http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Konqueror.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Firefox.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Epiphany.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Opera.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Lynx.png
http://www.marenger.com/provinggrounds/ancientGreek-Links.png

Good luck,

Carolyn

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks again for this. I will admit to a moment of anguish when I saw
the initial Konqueror screen capture Opera has also mangled the
letter mu for some reason, and distorted the letter pi.

But basically it looks as if I can type Ancient Greek, place it on
the web and be happy that it is reaching as many people as care to
look for it. (Mac, Linux and Windows).

There are many people doing this at the moment but I am hoping to
place a full transcription of Jebb's Oidipos (Oedipus) the King
online. It is out of copyright so no legal probs and this would be a
tremendous resource. 1,500 lines though and I type Greek very slowly


Thanks for your help in this early part of my plan!!

Andrew.

 

[carolyn]

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks again for this. I will admit to a moment of anguish when I saw
the initial Konqueror screen capture Opera has also mangled the
letter mu for some reason, and distorted the letter pi.

But basically it looks as if I can type Ancient Greek, place it on
the web and be happy that it is reaching as many people as care to
look for it. (Mac, Linux and Windows).

There are many people doing this at the moment but I am hoping to
place a full transcription of Jebb's Oidipos (Oedipus) the King
online. It is out of copyright so no legal probs and this would be a
tremendous resource. 1,500 lines though and I type Greek very slowly


Thanks for your help in this early part of my plan!!

Andrew.

I am glad I could help. Good luck with the project.

Carolyn

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

Still a battle to render Ancient Greek well I guess,

You seem to be going the right way about representing your source
material in HTML, and in a way that will reduce maintenance
commitments in the future, as you don't seem to be applying any
kludges to the content to pacify current browsers but which might
become counter-productive as browsers improve. I'd rate that highly.
There are far too many legacy quasi-HTML pages on the web which relied
on old browser bugs, and now in desperate need of maintenance.

As for your well-intentioned experiments in choosing fonts on behalf
of the user, I'd have to rate this as a two-edged sword.

For the average non-specialist user with recent versions of the fonts
that you are working with, it may well be that your font proposals
will produce better results, indeed.

However, those who had an inferior version of one of the fonts that
come earlier in your list, while having a better version of a font
that comes later in your list, would get unfortunate consequences.

However, for a specialist who has acquired their favourite
Unicode-compatible font for polytonic Greek, your proposals rate to
make things worse, by choosing an inferior font which they happen to
have, rather than the one that they had gone out of their way to
choose.

I generally recommend to specialist readers in this kind of situation
to disable author-specified fonts in their browser, and configure the
browser to use the font which they desired. However, that then
defeats /all/ font changes proposed by the author, which may be
overkill, and removes some harmless site-specific visual benefits.

Have you considered offering alternative stylesheets? Quite a number
of browsers have support for that feature of CSS (Moz/Firefox and
Opera to name just some). You might need to offer a link to a "tips
on browsing this site"-type page, in which you talk about the use of
"alternate stylesheets" (as they're rather confusingly[1] termed in
the specs), since not every reader would be familiar with them.

best regards

[1] I say "confusing" because, in British English, "alternate" means
first the one, then the other, by turns. "alternative" means "choose
one from the two which are offered" (or, if not being too pedantic,
"choose one from several"). In US usage it seems the terms are used
more or less interchangeably.