On Sun, 5 Apr 2009 13:11:29 +0200
Jürgen Spitzmüller <[email protected]> dijo:
> John Jason Jordan wrote:
> > Furthermore, the SAMPA-like IPA insertion thing is like 15 years out of
> > date. Linguists today use straight Unicode insertion via the Unicode
> > code point. But that's OK, I have figured out how to enter the Unicode
> > number to get the character I want in general text without having to
> > use a TIPA box.
>
> I think this statement ("Linguists today") is too general. I very much prefer
> the TIPA shortcut notation over unicode codepoints, because insertion is much
> faster. Also, the TIPA package gives you much better microtypographic quality
> (at least on LyX), because the unicode method will break character kerning
> (as
> long as you do not use XeTeX, that is).
>
> But tastes may differ.
OK, just consider that I am too lazy to learn the old way. I have
memorized all the code points for the IPA characters. But I discovered
that I can go to Insert > Special Character > Symbols and click on the
character there.
Your point about kerning is well taken. But I absolutely cannot stand
Times, and Computer Modern is even uglier. If those are my only choices
then best I abandon the effort to learn Lyx right now. However, if I
can get Bera Serif, Concrete Roman, Nimbus Roman and KP Serif
installed, and if one of them has the proper characters, then I am
happy to give up the kerning. I assume that there is a way to do manual
kerning in Lyx somewhere, and I can do that if something is really bad.
> > The problem is that the fonts that are installed by default in Lyx that
> > I find aesthetically acceptable (Bitstream Charter, Utopia) do not have
> > the necessary IPA and combining diacriticals blocks. There is the
> > possibility of Bera Serif and Concrete Roman, but they were not
> > installed by default and I can't figure out how to install them.
>
> What LaTeX distribution are you running? Recent distributions should do the
> installation for you on request.
I have been working only in Lyx, which is 1.6.1 on Ubuntu Intrepid.
> > Apparently there are TeX font packages for the above two, and also
> > several others. I am especially interested in Nimbus because I have the
> > regular TT version installed and it does have the IPA characters that I
> > need.
> >
> > The problem is that I cannot figure out how to install these font
> > packages. Can someone give an idiot n00bie a step-by-step how-to?
>
> Most packages come with an installation instruction (and the installation
> slightly differs, depending on the package).
I'm so stupid that I can't even figure out what the "package" means. I
go to CTAN and I find that each font involves a bunch of files. For
example, here is the directory of the Nimbus font:
http://www.ctan.org/cgi-bin/filenameSearch.py?filename=nimbus&Search=Search
There is no README in that directory. I guess you're just supposed to
know what to do with those files. Sadly, I am too new to Lyx to know
that. I also can't find any options in Lyx where it will install fonts
for me.
You mention LaTeX, and I am sure it is installed, but I can't figure
out how to launch it. From the command line it just appears to expect
me to start typing something. Is it a command line only application?
Regarding which version I have, from the command line I got this:
latex --version
pdfTeX using libpoppler 3.141592-1.40.3-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.6)
kpathsea version 3.5.6
Copyright 2007 Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
Kpathsea is copyright 2007 Karl Berry and Olaf Weber.
There is NO warranty. Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX using libpoppler copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX using libpoppler source.
Primary author of pdfTeX using libpoppler: Peter Breitenlohner
(eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX). Kpathsea written by Karl Berry, Olaf
Weber, and others.
Compiled with libpng 1.2.27; using libpng 1.2.27
Compiled with zlib 1.2.3.3; using zlib 1.2.3.3
Compiled with libpoppler version 3.00
Other than that, I don't know what version it is. But I installed it
with Synaptic, so it's whatever the latest version in the Ubuntu
Intrepid repositories is.
I did warn that I am an idiot, did I not? :)
