Bryn Mawr College

Typing Polytonic Greek on a Mac

Click on the Apple Menu   in the upper left corner of your screen and select System Preferences

 

 

 

In System Preferences, go to the Personal row and click on International.

 

 

 

Select the Input Menu tab, and click on the box next to Greek Polytonic.

 

 

 

At the top right corner of the screen, click on the icon of the American flag .  Select Polytonic Greek from the menu. 

 

 

 

You may now begin typing in Greek, using any Unicode-enabled word processing program.   Please note that Microsoft Office X and its predecessors do not accept Unicode, but Microsoft Office 2004 does.

 

 

For a map of character locations, return to the International page of the System Preferences menu and enable the Keyboard Viewer. 

 

 

 

After enabling the Keyboard Viewer, go back to the flag icon menu  and below the list of enabled languages, click on Show Keyboard Viewer.  An image of your keyboard with the location of polytonic Greek letters and accent marks will appear.

 

 

 

To produce diacritical marks such as those marked in orange above, one or more keys must be pressed before typing the letter to be accented.  The necessary keystrokes are as follows:

 

 

For instance, to type an alpha with a rough breathing mark, simultaneously press the Shift and " (quotation mark) keys, release them, then press the A key.  Multiple diacritics may appear over a single letter by typing the desired accent keystrokes in any order.