My Findings About IPA Fonts

[Peyton Todd]

Hello, all.

Based on the comments by others on this topic touting its compatibility with other systems, it seems best to go with the 'Keyman' Windows extension by Tavultesoft, described on the page referenced by Brian in his first note on this topic, namely http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/tools/uniwin.html. Another reason for choosing it is that the simple Arial Unicode mentioned at the top of the aforesaid page insists on putting extra white space after each letter you insert, which is probably not the look you will want.

The installation of Tavultesoft/Keyman is a complex process, but it is described in great detail in the documentation which downloads along with it (specifically in the Install Guide.pdf), so I'll not repeat all that. A couple of helpful points, though:

1. Don't just jump for the first set of instructions you see. First make sure you're reading the ones for your platform (e.g. Windows, Mac) and operating system (e.g. Win XP, OS X).

2. As almost always happens when such detailed instructions are provided (and as happened to me in this case), be prepared for subtle differences between your configuration and that on the computer where the screen prints and detailed instructions were prepared.

The system works great once it's installed. You will no longer have You won't have go to Insert --> Symbol in Word, but instead you will have sets of keystrokes you can type directly for each special character as described in the Release Notes.pdf which also comes with the installation. That is made possible by a virtual 'Keyboard' which maps the keystroke combinations to the desired characters, which you will have associated, in Windows itself, with some language other than the one you're using for your document. The example they use is Icelandic. You have to pick that language every time you want to insert IPA codes.

It does have a quirk, but fortunately there's a solution to it: When you stuff in an IPA character, it looks bigger than the rest of the characters on the line, even though the fontsizes are the same. That seems to happen even when the font family is also the same, e.g., both Arial. And the result is that the space between the line the IPA character got stuffed into, and the line above it, is greater than that between the lines in the rest of the paragraph.

Here's the solution: Select the whole paragraph, then go to Format --> Paragraph --> Line spacing --> Exactly and just specify the spacing you want. As long as you tell Word this is what it must do, it will space the whole paragraph the way you want. If even lets you get the lines so close together that they overlap each other in case you wanted to do that, which of course you don't. However, even that is not quite enough.

The full sequence which works for me is:

1. Type your text blah blah blah - let's say in 11 pt. Times New Roman.

2. Then when you come to the spot where you want the IPA code type the slash, then pick Icelandic at the top of your screen (via the button which will have been installed there), and stuff in the desired IPA characters.

3. Then set the language back to what you're using in the document (e.g., English) AND set the font back to whatever you were using, because the process will have re-set it to Lucide Sans Unicode. Now type the closing slash and proceed with your text.

4. Go to Format --> Paragraph --> Line spacing --> Exactly as just described and set the line spacing to what it should be.

One last thing and you're done:

5. Even though the IPA characters no longer cause a gap between the lines, they still look too big, and they look like they're in boldface (which they're not). So if your document is at 11 pt., say, as mine is, change the font on the IPA characters to 10 pt.

I know it sounds maddening, but it's worth it!

Good luck,
Peyton