Macro for converting Unicode into ASCII?

[jdarlack]

I first ran into the smart quotes problem with Hebrew! Whenever I'd go to type a pathach, I'd get some form of gibberish that I didn't intend. You have to keep this in mind when you have "auto capitalization" on as well. For instance, a lowecase "a" is an aleph, but an uppercase "a" is a holem-vav.

One day, when Unicode is the completely accepted standard by everyone on all computers...as if it will ever happen...this won't be an issue...as much...

I'm sure that there will be some form of "auto-correct" that will stand in our way then as well!

~Jim

[pgons]

Thanks for the great macros. I've been wanting to figure out a way to convert bwgrkl to unicode. The conversion from bwgrkl to unicode seems to work very well! Two things I've noticed with the conversion from unicode to bwgrkl: (1) A word with a smooth breathing mark and a grave on the same letter results in a smooth breathing mark (or an apostrophe [?]) with no accent after the letter. Has anyone else noticed this? (2) Spaces in between letters do not get converted to bwgrkl. This is not that big of a deal, but it's just something I noticed. Thanks again for the great macros!

Phil Gons

[jdarlack]

(1) A word with a smooth breathing mark and a grave on the same letter results in a smooth breathing mark (or an apostrophe) with no accent after the letter. Has anyone else noticed this?

Hi Phil,
It looks like the problem here is with your auto-format as you type settings in Word. For the accents to work properly in BWGRKL, one must turn off the "Turn Quotes into Smart Quotes" settings off. Otherwise, it will change a simple apostrophe into a right-apostrophe and a simple quotation mark into a right-quotation mark. Hence, it looks like a smooth breathing mark (a right-apostrophe) following the letter, rather than the correct accent.

(2) Spaces in between letters do not get converted to bwgrkl. This is not that big of a deal, but it's just something I noticed.

Regarding this issue, you could simply do a find-replace for any white space in between BWGRKL letters (after you ran the first macro), and then replace it with "find text" (usually ^&) in the BWGRKL font.

[J Kendall]

Thanks for the great macros. I've been wanting to figure out a way to convert bwgrkl to unicode. The converion from bwgrkl to unicode seems to work very well! Two things I've noticed with the conversion from unicode to bwgrkl: (1) A word with a smooth breathing mark and a grave on the same letter results in a smooth breathing mark (or an apostrophe) with no accent after the letter. Has anyone else noticed this? (2) Spaces in between letters do not get converted to bwgrkl. This is not that big of a deal, but it's just something I noticed. Thanks again for the great macros!

Glad they've been of help Phil. I'd be the first to confess the limitations of the unicode to bwgrkl macro - see the disclaimers in my earlier post. However, I think Jim's post should solve problem (1). Problem (2) is intentional. As the warnings in my earlier post explain, this macro was a quick fix for some files with mixed English and Greek text. I didn't want all the white spaces in the English text converted to bwgrkl.

Despite its limitations, the macro is very fully commented and should provide enough information for you to adapt it according to your needs.

John
--
John Kendall
Cardiff
Wales

[pgons]

Jim and John,

Thanks for the clarification. That answers both questions. Thank you both very much.

Phil Gons