Cyrillic on OSX--some good news

[Eliot Borenstein]

Since this is a perennial topic on the list, I thought I'd give an
update:  I've finally been able to get Cyrillic fonts working in OSX,
with my AATSEEL-phonetic keyboard.  My solution involves two important,
though not particularly technical, steps:

1) waiting around for a software company to fix some glitches, and

2) throwing money at the problem.

For years, I've used Linguist's Software's Cyrillic II fonts (which are
also available for Windows), and been mostly happy with them.  But they
had not made the transition to OS X, which means they were of limited
use to me when I upgraded my operating system.  Now, however,
Linguist's Software has developed versions of their product that can
run in OS X, and I'm using them in Word with no problem.  I just had to
pay for the upgrade (and if you don't have the fonts, you just have to
buy the fonts and keyboard files; most of the products cost $99.95).
The catch is: you have to be running Jaguar (OS X.2 or above) to
install the keyboard files.  If you have Jaguar, then  you're fine.

When installing the fonts, keep in mind that the instructions have two
minor mistakes in them:  the fonts still come with an enclosure saying
the keyboards don't work in OS X, but you can ignore this, since the
instruction manual itself is up-to-date.  Also, the installation
instructions say to check on keyboards from a list in the "Keyboards
Tab" in the "International" section of the "System Preferences." This
tab is actually called the "Input Menu."  And nowhere in the
instructions does it tell you to restart after installing the
keyboards, but that was the only way I got them to work.

Presumably, once you have the keyboard files in, you can use them with
other Cyrillic fonts.  I haven't tried this, though. And, now that I
think of it, this could mean that you could drop pretty much any
Cyrillic keyboard file in their and it would work, but I haven't tried
that, either.

Linguist's software can be reached on the web at
www.linguistsoftware.com, and they have very good, and very patient,
technical support over the phone.

FYI, I'm still having weird stuff when I copy and paste Cyrillic text
from websites, or from the Universal Database of Russian Newspapers.
The text reads just fine, the font is Latinskij, but when I put my
cursor in any one of the words, the words switch from being Cyrillic to
being that all-too-familiar underlining ("_________, _________") and
the font becomes Times.  I can change the font back to Latinskij and
read it again, but the words still tend to disappear if I click on
them.  I've tried changing the default font for the document (in Word),
but that does nothing.  If anyone has any advice on this, I'd
appreciate it.


Eliot Borenstein,  Chair
Dept. of Russian & Slavic Studies
New York University

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