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Saturday, 12 October 2024 | ||
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Important: Upgrading to Windows 98 with proper Greek supportComputing in Greek on Microsoft Windows '95/98 Systems
Introduction: [01] Windows '95 Multilanguage SupportInstalling a basic set of fonts and the necessary keyboard driversFirst you need to install the Multilanguage Support module for Windows '95: Note: If you do not have the CD-ROM version of Windows '95, and Windows was not installed on your computer by the manufacturer, use the instructions which are located HERE instead of the following step. Go to: Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Windows Setup. There, click on Multilanguage Support and click Details. Check the Greek Language Support checkbox, and click OK. Click OK again, and the system should start installing the Multilanguage support. You may be asked to restart your computer. Make sure that all other applications are closed (or Alt-Tab to each of them in order to shut them down), and then click OK. Once Windows '95 has restarted, you need to install the keyboard drivers for Greek: Go to: Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Keyboard -> Language. You should see at least two languages there: Greek and English. If you do not see Greek, click on Add..., and select Greek from the list. You should now see GR Greek [Space] Greek IBM 220. If the Layout is incorrect, highlight the line for Greek, and click on Properties. There you can select Greek IBM 220 for the Keyboard layout. Before clicking the OK button, make sure that Left Alt+Shift is selected for the Switch languages option, and that the Enable indicator in taskbar option is checked. Also, depending on which language you will be using more often, you can chose to set one of the languages as the default (indicating which keyboard driver should be active when Windows '95 starts up). To use the Greek keyboard:So, what have we done? We have installed a basic set of fonts, and we should be able to type
in Greek.
[02] Reading Greek on the WWWConfiguring your WWW browserWarning! You must carry out the instructions in section [01] above before proceeding with this section. We are primarily concerned here with two browsers: Netscape's Navigator/Communicator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. If you are using older versions of these browsers we suggest that you upgrade to the last ones (N4.6x and IE5.x respectively). Currently IE5 has the best support for Greek fonts on the WWW although it takes considerably more disk space than N4.6x. For those of you who do not use one of these browsers:
Note: ISO-8859-7 is the 'proper' Greek encoding, as defined by the Greek Standards Organization (ELOT, hence ELOT928). Windows-1253 is Microsoft's rendition of ISO-8859-7, which has a few annoying errors. Luckily, these are not crucial since the difference is limited to the accented capital 'A'. This character will not be rendered properly in ISO-8859-7 encoding if the document was produced on Microsoft / Windows-1253 platforms, and visa-versa.
In order to avoid repeating this step every time you start Netscape, you should also select Options -> Document Encoding -> Set Default.
For Opera, versions 3.x, two steps need to be followed:If your version of Netscape Internet Explorer or Opera is not listed here, we recommend that you upgrade to a more current version, since your browsers are probably already having difficulty displaying many recent improvements to HTML. However, if this is something you do not want to do, you are going to need a whole set of additional fonts, and a different set of instructions. In this case please send a message through the support form HERE for assistance. So, what have we done? You should now be able to read and write in Greek, both in word
processors and on the WWW. If you have followed the instructions above,
the click HERE
for a torture test of your WWW browser Greek configuration.
[03] Sending and Receiving Email in GreekOnce you have a full set of Greek fonts operating on your system, you can start to send and receive email in Greek.The most important difficulty comes from the labeling of Greek text by the mailer being used. Some mailers send Greek text (ISO-8859-7) while labeling it as English (US-ASCII or ISO-8859-1). Thus, as with the WWW browsers, it is important that the mailer used have a 'default encoding' which can override the labeling of a message, and display an English-labeled or unlabeled message in Greek. To date, the Windows '95 mailers we have tried which comply with this requirement include: Eudora, Internet Mail, Netscape Mail and Outlook Express. Unfortunately, Outlook '97 is *not* able to perform in this fashion, and should not be used. Outlook Express is by far the best email client in Windows 95 regarding the support of foreign languages, although Netscape Communicator v4.x Mail and Outlook 98 are also sufficiently good. The simplest approach to making your mailer compatible with Greek messages is to select the Courier New as the primary font used.
Eudora Pro v3.x needs very little customization in order to
be able to send and receive email in Greek. Go to Tools -> Options...
-> Fonts & Display and select Courier New Greek for the
Screen Font and the Print header & footer font. However Eudora
labels Greek text as English, so we suggest that you use one of the mailers
below, instead. If the fonts for the Netscape Communicator v4.x are set up according to the instructions discussed in Section [02] above, then there is no additional configuration required. You need to download the Pan-European Language Support for IE 4.x. according to the instructions discussed in Section [02] above. Then you have to setup your default encoding like what we did with the WWW browser of IE4.x. Go to: Tools -> Options -> Read -> Fonts.... There, Greek should be included in the Character Sets area. Click once on Greek , then choose Greek Alphabet (ISO) from the Character Set drop-down menu and then click on the Set as Default button. You are all set. In case you ever receive a message in Greek labeled in the wrong encoding (eg. if the sender is a Eudora user it will claim that it is ISO-8859-1 instead of ISO-8859-7), you can display it in Greek by choosing View -> Language -> Greek Alphabet (ISO). If you are asked whether you want all the messages labeled as ISO-8859-1 to be shown as ISO-8859-7, we suggest that you say 'Yes'. The same goes for other Latin-1 formats like US-ASCII, ISO_8859_1 etc
You need to download the Pan-European Language Support for IE 5.x. according to the instructions discussed in Section [02] above. Then you have to setup your default encoding like what we did with the WWW browser of IE4.x. Go to: Tools -> Options -> Read -> Fonts.... There, Greek should be included in the Character Sets area. Click once on Greek , then choose Greek Alphabet (ISO) from the Character Set drop-down menu and then click on the Set as Default button. You are all set. In case you ever receive a message in Greek labeled in the wrong encoding (eg. if the sender is a Eudora user it will claim that it is ISO-8859-1 instead of ISO-8859-7), you can display it in Greek by choosing View -> Language -> Greek Alphabet (ISO). If you are asked whether you want all the messages labeled as ISO-8859-1 to be shown as ISO-8859-7, we suggest that you say 'Yes'. The same goes for other Latin-1 formats like US-ASCII, ISO_8859_1 etc If you want to fix this problem once and for all you can implement the following two steps:
You need to download the Pan-European Language Support for IE according to the instructions discussed in Section [02] above. Then you have to setup your default encoding like what we did with the WWW browser of IE4 Go to: Tools -> Options -> Mail Format -> Fonts -> International Fonts.... There, Greek should be included in the Character Sets area. Click once on Greek , then choose Greek Alphabet (ISO) from the Character Set drop-down menu and then click on the Set as Default button. You are all set. In case you ever receive a message in Greek labeled in the wrong encoding (eg. if the sender is a Eudora user it will claim that it is ISO-8859-1 instead of ISO-8859-7), you can display it in Greek by choosing View -> Language -> Greek Alphabet (ISO).
You need to download the Pan-European Language Support for IE according to the instructions discussed in Section [02] above. Then you have to setup your default encoding like what we did with the WWW browser of IE. Go to: Tools -> Options -> Mail Format -> Fonts -> International Fonts.... There, Greek should be included in the Character Sets area. Click once on Greek , then choose Greek Alphabet (ISO) from the Character Set drop-down menu and then click on the Set as Default button. You are all set. In case you ever receive a message in Greek labeled in the wrong encoding (eg. if the sender is a Eudora user it will claim that it is ISO-8859-1 instead of ISO-8859-7), you can display it in Greek by choosing View -> Language -> Greek Alphabet (ISO). If you want to fix this problem once and for all you can implement the following two steps: [04] Technical SupportIf you have questions regarding the above topics send a message to HR-Net, through the support form HERE. The HR-Net Fonts Team answers up to 100 messages per month, so if you have trouble with the installation, please don't hesitate to write us.Also, we didn't think we'd have to say this, but here it is: Support from this form is free. Really. That's why our domain isn't hri.com! However, we ask for a couple of favors: First, given that this is a 100%
volunteer-based team (i.e. whoever answers your message did not get paid
to do so), we would appreciate your patience until we get back to you.
Second, we need more information than 'my Greek does not work'. We MUST
know your Operating System, and would really like to know what you tried
before things went astray. Be as detailed as possible -- this will help
us get back to you ASAP. Third, do not send email to other addresses @hri.org;
you have to fill out this form
if you want the right people to receive your message and help you.
[05] MS Office '97 TipsMicrofoft Hellas has created a page addressing problems in using Greek with MS Office '97, especially when trying to read files created with earlier versions of Word and Office. It also provides updated drivers for printers that cannot print Greek documents created with Office 97. The address is:http://www.microsoft.com/hellas/support/tips/off97tips.htm (in ELOT928 Greek). If you cannot browse the WWW in Greek, try this
link instead.
[06] Classical GreekThe long-term solution for classical Greek is the Unicode character set. You may find information on how to type in classical Greek in Word '97 here.[07] New: Spell Checker for Office 97/Office 2000Note: These instructions are provided only for advanced users.Office 97Download the Greek Proofing Tools for Office 97 (1.41Mb). Open the zip file and extract the two files in it in the directory:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Proof
Although these instructions do work for Windows 98 and Windows NT systems, we suggest that you do the following instead:
Office 2000If you already have Office 97, and you want to upgrade to Office 2000, we suggest that you first download the Greek Proofing Tools for Office 97, install them in the proper directory and then run the upgrade for Office 2000. If you have already installed Office 2000 on your machine, download the Greek Proofing Tools for Office 97, install them in the proper directory and if the spell checker does not work properly under Word 2000, run again the upgrade for Office 2000 (so that the installation program adds in your registry the location of the Greek Proofing Tools files). [08] New: My Printer does not print GreekThis means that you have old drivers that do not support Unicode fonts. You should try the latest drivers for your printer from manufacturer's website. If you cannot find anything like that, you should try the instructions at http://www.microsoft.com/hellas/support/tips/off97tips.htmFootnotesInstalling the Windows '95 Multilanguage Support if you do not have the Windows '95 CD-ROM, and Windows '95 was not installed on your computer by the manufacturer.Note that these instructions DO NOT apply for Windows 98 or Windows NT systems
The downloaded lang.exe file is a copy of the original Microsoft file, distributed on the Windows '95 CD-ROM. Microsoft's main distribution for this file is at http://download.microsoft.com/download/win95upg/cdex1/1/W95/EN-US/lang.exe. Created by the HR-Net Group. Last Update, July 31, 1999
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