∑ - alt-w
π - alt-p
Ω - alt-z
µ - alt-m
For any character beyond that, use the character palette (Edit > Special Characters).
If you want to type long Greek texts, activate a Greek keyboard in System Preferences > International > Input Menu.
The keyboard simply called "Greek" is good if you type in modern Greek.
The keyboard called "Greek Polytonic" works better if you type text in Ancient Greek, which has more accents and some archaic characters like digamma (ϝ), sampi (ϡ) and koppa (ϙ). The polytonic keyboard lacks some mathematical symbols and a few punctuation marks, that can be found in the "Greek" keyboard.
To see the exact differences between the two Greek keyboards, use the Keyboard Viewer.
Greek Polytonic keyboard.
If you type in ancient Greek, you may run into something that looks like a problem. In unicode there are two versions of accented Greek characters - with tonos (τόνος) and with oxia (οξεία). Luckily they look the same in most fonts. Here is epsilon with tonos: έ. And here it is with oxia: έ. However, in some fonts there is a very clear difference, like in Tahoma:
If you use a font with a difference, you should really use the oxia version with the slanted accent for ancient Greek. But Apple's keyboard only allows you to type the tonos version.
The solution is very simple: use a font where even the tonos version has a slanted accent.
5 comments:
For the sake of completeness, there's a few more Greek symbols commonly used in math:
∏ - ⌥-P
∆ - ⌥-j
∂ - ⌥-d
and to be pedantic, while ⌥-s (ß) is often used as the Greek beta character (β), it's really a German scharfes, and such substitution is inappropriate.
Good comment.
Perhaps one should remind people that none of those symbols work in a Greek text. The π you get with alt-p is different from the π you get, if you type using a Greek keyboard. Depending on the available fonts, they may look very different. Search engines may not find for example the word πολλοί, if the π is typed with alt-p on a US keyboard.
I would not really call ∂ a Greek character at all. The closest thing in Greek is δ, small delta, but it has a different shape.
There is a clear difference between τόνος (έ) and οζεία (έ) in the font in which your blog appears. Wouldn't a more compatible approach be to choose an input method that allows proper accenting rather than relying on the deficiency of a font's design?
I have been having problems transferring documents from .doc to .pages with Greek fonts. Even after I download the fonts (in this case, sgreek), pages converts the characters into textboxes. Is there a fix for this? I'm trying to do Research Assistant work and it's making me look silly :)
I have been having trouble with greek fonts. There are several greek fonts which are standard for academic use, depending on the field, but not all of them seem to be compatible with pages. I am currently working as a research assistant and my professor uses the sgreek font. Even after downloading the font for my mac, however, pages converts all the characters to textboxes. It's making me feel quite silly :)
Is there a fix for this?
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