Apple Cyrillic fonts and Microsoft Office 98

[George Fowler]

At 4:13 PM -0500 3/11/99, Keith Langston wrote:

> The Apple Standard Cyrillic fonts together with George Fowler's
> Cyrillic keyboards work fine with Microsoft Office 95 on my computer
> (running OS 8.1), but when I installed these on the new Macs in our
> departmental lab, I can't get the cyrillic to work with the 1998
> version of Microsoft Word. The font names show up in cyrillic on the
> font menu, but when you try to select one of them nothing happens.
> However, if you type something in another font, highlight it and then
> select one of the cyrillic fonts it *does* work, but then if you
> position the cursor somewhere in the word and attempt to type, the font
> for the whole word switches back to the default setting. I tried
> changing the default font to cyrillic and that doesn't work either. Has
> anyone else encountered this problem? Any ideas?

There were several follow-up postings, including one speculative one
from me, but no definitive answer. I have solved the problem now, and
wanted to pass this along to Keith and everyone else interested in
fine-tuning their Macs!

First, a prediction: though Keith doesn't say so, I'd wager a
substantial sum that the lab Macs are running OS 8.5 or 8.5.1 (should
be the latter!).

Second, background to the problem: the issue involves synchronization
between the system "dialect", or language behavior, and the
fonts/keyboards in use. If your Mac thinks you are using it for
Russian purposes, it may link Russian fonts (which are identifiable
to the system; that's how a utility like Adobe Type Reunion can unify
all standard Cyrillic fonts at the bottom of the font menu in many
applications, for example) and Russian keyboards (which the system
thinks should be used when you are using a Russian font). Most of my
keyboards are old enough that I wasn't aware of this linkage when I
made them up, and they were generally cobbled together to begin with,
rather than designed in any consistent fashion. (But see below.)

Logically, of course, one could use any keyboard with any font; the
only purpose of a keyboard is to make sure that you can type the
characters you want. But the linking of keyboard and font is intended
to be *helpful* rather than a burden. One might as well get in line
with these requirements, rather than butting one's head against the
wall.

Therefore, there ought to be two solutions: 1) delink the font and
keyboard; or 2) ensure that the keyboard you want to use is in synch
with the linkage.

Solution #1: To delink the keyboard and font, go to the Keyboard
control panel, click Options, and uncheck the font/keyboard linkage
checkbox. (I was wrong in my earlier posting in ascribing this
linkage to Word; it is OS 8.5.x behavior.) I have done this on my
machine, and it does NOT delink the font and keyboard, as Keith
describes. I cannot understand this! Perhaps Kjetil Ra Hauge (who
posted some very useful information in this thread) or someone else
can explain why that isn't enough to delink them!

Solution #2: So, let's quit beating our heads against the wall.
Instead, just install a new copy of GF Cyrillic CAPS keyboard (KCHR
resource) which has been altered so that the keyboard ID number is
appropriate for the linkage. What, you don't have one? I do: I just
made it up. I changed the name to GF Cyrillic CAPS.2 and the keyboard
ID number from 1945 to 19548 (now within the range identified by
Kjetil), and lo and behold, this actually works. Open Word 98, select
a Cyrillic font, select the GF Cyrillic CAPS.2 keyboard, and you type
English in that font. Hit CAPS LOCK and you type Cyrillic according
to the AATSEEL Student keyboard (most convenient for non-natives like
myself).

While I was tinkering with the KCHR file for this keyboard, I took
the liberty of fixing a couple of problems that have long irritated
me, mainly the accidental remapping of Option+Command+Key
combinations to ridiculous arbitrary values, both with and without
CAPS LOCK depressed. These now work according to the standard US
keyboard.

Where can you get this keyboard? I am not ready to distribute it via
the Internet, i.e., replacing the older one on the AATSEEL www page,
for example. But you can get a "beta" copy by emailing me, and if you
find any problems, please let me know, and I'll fix them and
eventually post a replacement. I'll do a Russian National keyboard
the same way (I have one now, but it has the same problems). In the
meantime, the damn thing is only 2K, so I am going to paste in a
binhexed copy below. If you don't want it (or if you are a PC user,
boo hiss), ignore it, and it will do no harm. If you *want* to try
it, save that portion of this message as a text file (without my
signature lines), then do the usual thing of running it through
Stuff-It Expander or the equivalent. You should be able to leave in
the old GF Cyrillic CAPS alongside the new one, to see more clearly
what the differences are.

Before closing, let me pass along two more snippets of information.
First, a positive fringe benefit of fixing your font/keyboard habits
to accord with Apple's WorldScript is that if you are typing in
Cyrillic in Word 98 and switch to a program that doesn't support
Cyrillic (e.g., any version of Telnet), then you will automatically
switch back to the US keyboard. That's not a bad thing!

Second, there's a brand new, OS 8.5-savvy version of cRussify out,
and I just installed it about one hour ago. It is free from
http://www.macintosh.ru, about a 1 MB download. It seems to be
effective and stable. If, like me, you want a basically US system,
but with Cyrillic-savvy behavior, install the secondary Cyrillic
script. Add my keyboard, and you're ready to go! The Finder will
display Cyrillic, sort in Cyrillic order if required, and so on and
so forth. Best of all, I can't find any detrimental side effects!
Unlike other Russification software (Dialect, Russificator, Universal
Cyrillic Script, Apple Cyrillic Language Kit), it doesn't forcibly
modify the way numbers, dates, and times are displayed, and I haven't
been able to make anything crash as a result! (Dialect always makes
Eudora Pro crash for me, for example.) So I heartily recommend that
you check out this free software.

George Fowler

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George Fowler                                [Email] gfowler at indiana.edu
Dept. of Slavic Languages        [dept. tel.] 1-812-855-9906/-2608/-2624
Ballantine 502                                [dept. fax] 1-812-855-2107
1020 E. Kirkwood Ave.               [home tel./fax] 1-317-726-1482/-1642
Indiana University               [Slavica tel./fax] 1-812-856-4186/-4187
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