SIL IPA and SIL IPA93 (legacy) fonts – FAQ

Answer: As you have implied, documents which were created (encoded) with legacy fonts are not compatible with Unicode fonts. You not only need to use a Unicode font, you will need to convert your data to Unicode.

Since you have MS Word documents it might be a straightforward problem. These instructions should work if you have MS Word 2003:

• Download and install Doulos SIL — Download or Charis SIL — Download.
• Download and install SILConverters 4.0 (follow the installation instructions on that page).
  • When you get to the SIL Converters Install Options dialog box:
    • Under Conversion Maps and Tables:
      • Make sure SIL IPA93<>UNICODE is selected. If you plan to convert SIL-IPA-1990 data to Unicode you should also make sure SIL-IPA-1990<>UNICODE is selected.
      • Click  Apply 
    • Continue on with the installation.
• If multiple users on the machine want to use the document template (found in: (C:Documents and Settings<user>Application DataMicrosoftTemplates), you need to manually move the .DOT files to some common location and each user will need to browse for them individually in Tools / Templates and Add-Ins. If you want one or more of these document templates to start up automatically when Word starts, move them either to the current user’s Startup folder (i.e. C:Documents and Settings<user>Application DataMicrosoftWordSTARTUP). For all users, put it in the global startup folder (e.g. C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOFFICE11STARTUP).
• Open your document in MS Word
• If you did not load the template in the manner specified above, you should follow these steps to activate the Conversion Macro Template:
  • Click Tools / Templates and Add-ins...
  • Click the  Add  button to browse for the Data Conversion Macro dot file (in, C:Documents and SettingsyourloginnameApplication DataMicrosoftTemplates by default).
  • Click  OK  to return to Word.
• Go to Tools / Data Conversion or in Word 2007 Add-Ins / Data Conversion

SIL Converters Word Macro

• Under Conversion table details, click on  Select... 
  • Under Select Converter, select SIL IPA93<>UNICODE
  • Select  OK 
• If you have footnotes, choose Include footnotes
• Under Scope of change, select A specific regular font:
  • In the pull-down menu choose SILDoulos IPA93
• Under Target Data choose Apply specific font:
  • In the pull-down menu choose Doulos SIL (or another appropriate Unicode font)
• Select  OK 
• Be patient. With some documents the conversion process can take awhile. Do not assume that Word, or your computer, has hung.
• Follow these same instructions for converting your IPA-1990 (SILDoulosIPA font) data. However, instead of selecting the SIL IPA93<>UNICODE converter, you should select the SIL-IPA-1990<>UNICODE converter.

We hope your data will have converted correctly! These instructions are for converting your data in one document. Once you have tried it for one document and understand the concepts, you might want to use the Bulk Word Document Converter. (Start / Programs / SIL Converters / Bulk Word Document Converter) to do all your documents in one go. At this point we do not have step-by-step instructions, but basically you select your documents, choose your fonts, converter and font to apply.

If you do not have MS Word 2003 and want to try an older version of SIL Converters 2.5, you can try: SILConverters — Obsolete version. However, this version does not always work correctly and we are not providing any support for this product.

Answer:

• If you have not already installed SILConverters 4.0, follow the instructions above.
• Click on Start / Programs / SIL Converters / TECkit / DropTEC
• In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataSILSILConverters30MapsTables
• From Windows Explorer, drag the compiled mapping file silipa93.tec to the box at the top labeled “Mapping file:”. (Alternatively, you can use the adjacent  Browse  button and navigate to the file.)
• From Explorer, drag your text file to the box on the left labeled “Legacy text file:” (alternatively, you can use the adjacent  Browse  button and navigate to the file). When you have loaded the file, DropTEC prompts you for a destination file. Click  Save  and accept the default name.
• Once you supply the name, the file is created, so if you want to select a different “Unicode output form”, you'll need to do it before specifying the input file (and giving the name for the output file).
• Click on File / Exit of the “DropTEC” window to close the program.
• You should have a new Unicode-encoded text file.

Answer: the Bulk SFM Converter will easily handle doing this.

• If you have not already installed SILConverters 4.0, follow the instructions above.
• Click on Start / Programs / SIL Converters / Bulk SFM Converter
• Click on File / Open SFM Documents / Non-Unicode (Legacy)
• Select your files and click on  Open 
• For each SFM which uses the IPA93 fonts, click on Click here to define a converter
• Select  SIL IPA93<>UNICODE  (note that you may select a different converter for each SFM — if needed)
• Click on  OK 
• If you wish to preview whether the converter will work or not, you may select appropriate fonts
  • For each SFM which uses the IPA93 fonts
    • Right-click on Example Data and choose SILDoulos IPA93
    • Right-click on Example Results and choose Doulos SIL (or another appropriate Unicode font)
• If the example results look right, move on to the next step
• Click on File / Convert and Save SFM Documents / Unicode (UTF-8)
• Verify that the file name and location are appropriate and click on  Save 

Answer: The SIL IPA93 fonts are usually a better choice than the SIL IPA fonts, for several reasons:

• They are more up-to-date (1993 vs 1990).
• They include italic, bold, and bold-italic styles, in addition to regular face.
• The IPA fonts include a character (the retroflex t) at access code 160, which is inaccessible in MS Word, and which will not print on an HP LaserJet printer. This character has been moved to a different location in the IPA93 fonts.
• (Win) The only Keyman keyboard file available for the SIL IPA fonts is for Keyman 3.2, which does not run in Windows NT, 2000, or XP. In contrast, an updated keyboard file for using the SIL IPA93 fonts with Keyman 5 or 6 is available.
• (Mac) The SIL IPA93 fonts include a keyboard file for the SILKey keyboard utility, while the SIL IPA fonts do not. (SILKey facilitates typing phonetic characters.)

Answer:

IPA’s 1990 revision, including “Kiel” revisions, released as SIL IPA 1.2, now obsolete.

SIL IPA fonts

IPA’s 1993 revision, released as SIL IPA93 2.0.

SIL IPA93 or IPA93 fonts

Answer:

SIL IPA93 (Windows 3.1, 95, 98, Me)

The SILIPA93.EXE is a setup program containing the SIL IPA93 fonts and documentation. All you need to do is double click on it with the mouse. This will install the fonts and documentation into Windows for you. You do not need to use Control Panel / Fonts.

SIL IPA (Windows 3.1, 95, 98, Me)

The SILIP12A.EXE is a self-extracting file containing the SIL IPA fonts, documentation and installation program. The first thing you must do is place the SILIP12A.EXE in a temporary directory on your hard drive. Then at the DOS prompt type “silip12a” OR in Windows, open File Manager or Explorer and find the SILIP12A.EXE file and double click on it with the mouse. In both cases this will extract the files contained in the SILIP12A.EXE file. Then use File Manager or Explorer to double click on the INSTALL.EXE program. (Note that File Manager does not always update the screen after you extract the files from SILIP12A. You can press  F5  to update the screen). The install program will install the fonts into Windows for you. You do not need to use Control Panel / Fonts.

SIL IPA93 (Windows NT4, 2000, XP)

Run the installation program (SILIPA93.EXE) as described above, which will copy the font files to the WINNT (or Windows)System folder. Then, install the fonts through the Control Panel, as follows:

• If you are using Windows NT4, 2000, or Windows XP with the “Classic” interface, click on Start / Settings / Control Panel / Fonts. If you are using Windows XP with the default interface, click on Start / Control Panel / Appearance and Themes / See Also / Fonts.
• Click on File / Install New Font
• In the Add Fonts dialog that appears, navigate to your WINNT (or Windows) folder, then to the System folder on the drive where Windows is installed (usually C:, but might be another drive). The font names should appear.
• Click on  Select All , then on  OK .

(Alternatively, the fonts can be moved from the WINNT (or Windows)System folder to the WINNT (or Windows)Fonts folder using Windows Explorer.)

SIL IPA (Windows NT4, 2000, XP)

The SIL IPA installation program does not run in Windows NT4, 2000, or XP. We recommend using the SIL IPA93 fonts instead. However, the fonts, documentation, shortcuts, etc. can be installed manually.

To begin the process, double-click the SILIP12A.EXE download file as described above, which will extract the files contained in the SILIP12A.EXE file. Three folders will be created:

• Docs – Documentation
• Fonts – TrueType and PostScript Type 1 font files
• Utils – Other miscellaneous files

The SIL IPA fonts files appropriate for use with Windows NT4, 2000, or XP are as follows:

• FONTS.HLP – On-line Windows Help for SIL Encore IPA Fonts
• IPACHARS.WRI – Windows Write file with IPA characters and access codes
• IPAWIN.WRI – Text version of on-line Help file; Windows version
• ORDER.TXT – Text file of SIL Encore Font Order Form
• RESPONSE.TXT – Text file of Font Response Form
• RTF_FIX.DOT – Document template for converting to/from Macintosh (for WinWord version 2)
• SILDIPA_.TTF – SIL Encore IPA Doulos TrueType font file
• SILMIPA_.TTF – SIL Encore IPA Manuscript TrueType font file
• SILSIPA_.TTF – SIL Encore IPA Sophia TrueType font file

The manual installation process is as follows:

• Install the TrueType font files (from the Fonts folder) in Windows via the Control Panel.
• Put the rest of the files (from the Docs and Utils folders) in a folder of your choosing, such as C:WindowsIPAfonts. (Note: The Windows folder on your computer might be named WINNT rather than Windows.)
• Open the Programs folder in the Start menu and create a folder named SIL IPA Font Documentation.
• Create shortcuts to the .hlp and .wri files in the SIL IPA Font Documentation folder you just created.
• If Microsoft Word for Windows, Version 2 is installed on the computer, copy the .dot file to the folder containing Word’s Normal.dot template.

Please note that the SIL IPA fonts package includes keyboard files for using Keyman 3.2 with the SIL IPA fonts. Keyman 3.2 does not run in Windows NT/2000/XP. Keyman 6, the current version, runs in Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, but the keyboard files for Keyman 3.2 are not compatible with Keyman 6. The .kmn keyboard file provided in the SIL IPA fonts package could be updated to be compatible with Keyman 6, but SIL does not offer such an updated keyboard file.

SIL IPA93 and SIL IPA (Macintosh System 7-9)

To use the TrueType version of the fonts you must be running System 7 or later (or System 6.0.5 or later with TrueType INIT). To install the fonts, drag the TrueType suitcases of the fonts onto your closed System Folder (use the Font/DA Mover with System 6). Consult your Macintosh documentation for additional help.

SIL IPA93 (Macintosh OS X)

In order to install fonts in Mac OS X, you will need to be sure you have both read and write access to the Fonts folder located in the Library folder. Open the Library folder and select the Fonts folder. In the Finder, click on Get Info, then on Ownership & Permissions. In the palette that opens, check to be sure that Access is set to Read and Write. (If the pop-up menus are grayed out, click the padlock icon to unlock the pop-up menus.)

In OS X, fonts may be placed in four different places: (a) the Library:Fonts folder in the Home directory of a user account; (b) the Library:Fonts folder; (c) the Library:Fonts folder in the Mac OS X System folder; and (d) the Fonts folder in the OS 9.2 ("Classic") System folder.

Fonts in (a) are usable only to the user of that account. Fonts in (b) are available to all users. Fonts in (c) are also available to all users, but are essential for system use. Fonts in (d) are used by Classic applications, as well as by applications running in OS X.

In all cases, the fonts must all be "loose" in the System:Fonts folder or Library:Fonts folder — not grouped in family folders — or the system cannot see them.

Installing the SIL IPA93 fonts in Mac OS X

• The SIL IPA93 fonts download file uses an older version of Stuffit that will attempt to open a "classic," older version of Stuffit. Close that and open the Mac OS X Stuffit under Applications:Utilities:Stuffit.
• Drag the downloaded file onto the Stuffit window and it will create a folder called SIL IPA93 Fonts. Move that folder to a place for safekeeping.
• Open the SIL IPA93 Fonts folder.
• Copy the three files that end in ".fam" to the Library:Fonts folder on your hard drive. (You may also want to copy them to the Fonts folder in your OS 9 System folder.)

Answer: Unfortunately, the setup program for the SIL Encore IPA93 Fonts does not install fonts properly in Windows 2000 or Windows XP. (It was developed before Windows 2000 was released.) It copies the font files to the WINNTSystem folder instead of the WINNTFonts folder. In order to install the fonts properly, they should be installed through the Control Panel. See above.

Answer: The problem is probably a bad or missing autoexec.nt file (probably missing). This file (as well as config.nt) does not always exist on Windows 2000 and Windows XP installations. Autoexec.nt and Config.nt are used to initialize a DOS environment for applications that use a DOS environment for their processing.

There should be autoexec.nt and config.nt files (plain text files) in the system32 folder in your Windows folder. (Note: the Windows folder may be named either WINDOWS or WINNT. The error message above shows that the Windows folder is named WINDOWS on this computer. The instructions below assume the Windows folder is named WINDOWS.) If the autoexec.nt and config.nt files do not exist, you will need to create them as follows:

lh %SystemRoot%system32mscdexnt.exe
lh %SystemRoot%system32redir
lh %SystemRoot%system32dosx
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3

device=%SystemRoot%system32himem.sys 
files=40 

Install the fonts, following the installation instructions above.

Answer: To uninstall the fonts:

SIL IPA93 (Windows 95, 98, Me)

• Click on Start / Settings / Control Panel / Fonts
• Delete the fonts whose names begin with SILDoulos IPA93, SILManuscript IPA93, and SILSophia IPA93 (a total of 12 fonts).
• Close the Fonts folder and exit Control Panel.
• In Windows Explorer go to drive C, then to Windows.
• If no files appear, click on Show Files to show the contents of the Windows folder.
• Click on Start MenuPrograms.
• Delete the SIL IPA93 Fonts folder and all its contents.
• In Windows Explorer go to drive C, then to Program Files.
• Delete the Ipa93 folder and all its contents.
• Restart Windows.

SIL IPA (Windows 95, 98, Me)

• Click on Start / Settings / Control Panel / Fonts
• Delete the SILDoulosIPA, SILManuscriptIPA, and SILSophiaIPA fonts.
• Close the Fonts folder and exit Control Panel.
• In Windows Explorer go to drive C, then to Windows.
• If no files appear, click on Show Files to show the contents of the Windows folder.
• Click on Start MenuPrograms.
• Delete the SIL IPA Font Documentation folder and all its contents.
• In Windows Explorer go to drive C, then to Windows.
• If no files appear, click on Show Files to show the contents of the Windows folder.
• Delete the IPAfonts folder and all its contents.
• If Microsoft Word for Windows, Version 2 is installed on the computer, delete the RTF_FIX.DOT file from the folder containing Word’s Normal.dot template.
• Restart Windows.

SIL IPA93 (Windows NT4, 2000, XP)

• If you are using Windows NT4, 2000, or Windows XP with the “Classic” interface, click on Start / Settings / Control Panel / Fonts. If you are using Windows XP with the default interface, click on Start / Control Panel / Appearance and Themes / See Also / Fonts.
• Delete the fonts whose names begin with SILDoulos IPA93, SILManuscript IPA93, and SILSophia IPA93 (a total of 12 fonts).
• Close the Fonts folder and exit Control Panel.
• In Windows Explorer go to drive C, then to Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuPrograms.
• Delete the SIL IPA93 Fonts folder and all its contents.
• In Windows Explorer go to drive C, then to Program Files.
• Delete the Ipa93 folder and all its contents.
• Restart Windows.

SIL IPA (Windows NT4, 2000, XP)

• If you are using Windows NT4, 2000, or Windows XP with the “Classic” interface, click on Start / Settings / Control Panel / Fonts. If you are using Windows XP with the default interface, click on Start / Control Panel / Appearance and Themes / See Also / Fonts.
• Delete the SILDoulosIPA, SILManuscriptIPA, and SILSophiaIPA fonts.
• Close the Fonts folder and exit Control Panel.
• In Windows Explorer go to drive C, then to Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuPrograms.
• Delete the SIL IPA Font Documentation folder and all its contents.
• In Windows Explorer go to drive C, then to Windows. (Note: The Windows folder on your computer might be named WINNT rather than Windows.)
• Delete the IPAfonts folder and all its contents.
• If Microsoft Word for Windows, Version 2 is installed on the computer, delete the RTF_FIX.DOT file from the folder containing Word’s Normal.dot template.
• Restart Windows.

SIL IPA93 and IPA (Macintosh)

• Drag the SILDoulos IPA93.fam, SILDoulosIPA, SILManuscript IPA93.fam, SILManuscriptIPA, SILSophia IPA93.fam, and SILSophiaIPA font suitcases (as applicable) from your System:Fonts folder (System 7-9) or your Library:Fonts folder (OS X) to the Trash.
• Drag the SIL IPA93 Fonts or silipa12 folder (as applicable) to the Trash.

Answer: In order to use the keystrokes you described, Keyman must be installed and running, with the appropriate keyboard loaded and activated.

For more information, please see the answer to the question below.

Answer: The SIL IPA and IPA93 fonts include the phonetic symbols included in the International Phonetic Alphabet as of 1990 (IPA) or 1993 (IPA93). The current IPA is available at the website of the  International Phonetic Association.

Other phonetic symbols have been used at various times and in various contexts, but are not included in the 1990 or 1993 IPA standards.

Please note also that only about half of the IPA characters can be typed directly on the keyboard. However, the documentation included with the fonts shows all the characters that are included in the fonts.

If you have installed the SIL IPA or IPA93 fonts in Windows 95 or later using the default settings for the installation, the documentation for the fonts should be in the following locations:

SIL IPA fonts:

Documentation is in C:WindowsIpafonts.

These documents may also be accessed from the Start menu, by clicking on Programs, then SIL IPA Font Documentation.

SIL IPA93 fonts:

Documentation is in C:Program FilesIpa93.

These documents may also be accessed from the Start menu, by clicking on Programs, then SIL IPA93 Fonts.

As the documentation shows, there are many characters located at code points above ANSI 127. These can be accessed in two ways. For the Windows version you can hold down the  Alt  key and type the character’s access code on the number pad at the right end of your keyboard (be sure the  NumLock  is on) or if you have installed Keyman and have it running with the IPA or IPA93 keyboard active, you can use multiple key strokes. For example, if you want the schwa you could:

• Hold down the  Alt  key and type 0171 on the keypad OR using Keyman, you would type the letter ‘e’ followed by the ‘=’ character.
• The open O (upside down ‘c’) is located at ANSI 0141 OR using Keyman type ‘o’ followed by the ‘<’ character.

You can download Keyman from here. The Keyman keying sequences are found in the ipakeys.hlp and Ipa93key Help files, and the ANSI codes can be found in the ipachars.wri and the IPA93 ReadMe files. The keyboard files for using Keyman 3.2 with the SIL IPA and IPA93 fonts are included with Keyman 3.2. The keyboard file for using Keyman 5.0 or 6.0 with the SIL IPA93 fonts is available  here.

To type IPA characters using the SIL IPA93 fonts and Keyman 5.0 or 6.0 in Windows 95 or later,

• Start your word processor, and open the document you want to work on (or start a new one).
• Choose the IPA font you want to use (e.g. SILDoulos IPA93).
• Start Keyman.
• Left-click on the Keyman icon in the System Tray (lower right-hand portion of your screen) and select the appropriate keyboard (e.g. IPA93 1.2 (FF)).
• Go back to the open document in your word processor, and type the IPA letters desired, using the keystrokes shown in the help file (Ipa93key Help).

If you enter the characters directly from the keyboard without using Keyman (i.e., using the  Alt  key plus the access code listed in the Ipa93 ReadMe file), keep in mind the following:

• Enter the access codes using the keypad at the right end of your keyboard (turn on  Num Lock ), not the number keys across the top of your keyboard.
• Use a 4-digit access code consisting of 0 (zero) plus the three-digit code shown in the ipachars.wri or Ipa93 ReadMe file.
• Type the base character first, followed by the diacritic.
• There are separate diacritics for upper-case characters and lower-case characters.
• There are two sets of diacritics — one set for narrow characters (i-width) and another for wider characters (o-width)

(If you use Keyman, you don't have to worry about all this — it takes care of it automatically.)

Please note also that mixing characters from different typefaces within words is problematic; you can expect to have problems with character fit.

Accessing the characters on the Macintosh platform is very similar. The User’s Guide shows all the characters and how to access them. For example, if you want the:

• Schwa you could type  Option   Shift   E 
• The open O you could type  Option   c .

You can also use the Macintosh utility SILKey to type using multiple keystrokes. The Keyboard DOC file lists all the keying combinations. The keyboard file for using SILKey with the SIL IPA93 fonts is included with SILKey.

You can view all the IPA characters using the Windows program Character Map found in the Programs / Accessories folder or the Macintosh program KeyCaps.

Answer: These inclusions would have severely limited the number of IPA characters included in the font. We chose to provide as complete a solution as is possible in one font for the display and publication of phonetic text using the current IPA, but without the extras. All the extras are included in the full release of SIL Encore Fonts.

Answer:

These were standard IPA characters until 1989/1990 when the IPA officially made them “non-standard” in favor of other symbols. Due to font size limitations, we chose to include only the current IPA characters in the fonts.

Answer: Not easily. We elected to provide “o-width” and “i-width” diacritics only. If there had been space in the font, we would have included “m-width,” which would suit your purpose. There is one (painful) work around. If your application supports manual kerning, you might be able to kern the vowel and diacritic closer together (moving the diacritic toward the center of the vowel). You will then have to kern the diacritic and next character farther apart by an equal amount to ensure that the next character is spaced correctly. You might even be able to set up a macro to do this on command.

Answer: Line spacing can be problem when mixing typefaces. The SIL Encore IPA Fonts were designed to have greater automatic line spacing to allow for the very high and very low diacritics in the font (without crashing into the line above or below). Hence any line containing an IPA character will have its automatic line spacing altered.

Many programs, however, allow you to control the line spacing manually. For example, in Word for Windows, select the paragraph and choose Paragraph... (under the Format menu). Set Line Spacing to “Exactly” or “At Least,” and the point size you desire. Many users actually prefer this method even for everyday use because they don’t like the “Auto” line spacing that is given. You can even preset the line spacing in your “Normal” text style and alter it as needed for the point size of the text.

Answer: This is sometimes caused by the screen driver. Be sure you are using the latest drivers available for your video card. You might also try switching to the standard VGA driver included with Windows. If that does not solve the problem, contact us. Most Windows applications do not support zero-width or non-spacing diacritics, so we have had to modify the fonts to avoid the problem. Usually our work-around is successful, but not always.

Answer: The diacritics in the SIL IPA and IPA93 fonts use a very narrow space as the base character, with the diacritic above and to the left of it. Unfortunately, some printer drivers do not interpret this type of character correctly.

See if there’s an option to “Print TrueType as Graphics” or to select raster graphics in the printer driver. (Click on the Start button, then on Settings, then on Printers. Right-click on the icon for your printer, and select Properties. Look on all the tabs in the Properties dialog for a check box labeled “Print TrueType as Graphics” or “Raster Graphics”. If you find such a choice, select it, then click  OK  as many times as required to close the Properties dialog. Then try printing your document again.

You might also check the version of your printer driver. In the Properties dialog, look for a button labeled “About”. If you find such a button, click on it. The version of the driver will be displayed. Alternatively, if you can find the floppy disk(s) or CD-ROM that was used to load the driver when the printer was installed, see if there’s a version number on it. Then check the website of the printer manufacturer to see if a newer driver is available. Installing the latest driver may solve the problem.

If this doesn’t work and you have a means for creating PDFs (either with Adobe Acrobat (the complete package including Distiller, not just the Acrobat Reader) or another application that creates PDFs), you might try making a PDF of your document and see if that works. (pdf995, a free utility for creating PDFs, is available at www.software995.com.)

If there’s no “raster mode/ttf as graphics” option in the printer driver, and you don’t have a means for creating a PDF, you might try using the free utility “GSView” (a Ghostscript/Ghostview package for Windows, available from  http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/).

Install a PostScript printer driver on your computer, then install GSView. From your application (Word or whatever), print to a file, using the PostScript printer driver (this generates a PostScript file of the document), then open the file in GSView and print it on your printer.

Answer: There is an incompatibility between some ATI video drivers and fonts that contain “minute-width” diacritics (like the SIL Encore IPA Fonts). When these “non-spacing” diacritics are typed, they can seem to wipe out the image of the base character.

This only seems to effect video cards that contain ATI’s Mach32 chip. This includes the Ultra Pro and Ultra Plus cards (the original Ultra is OK), as well as any on board video that contains the chip (like some AST Premmia systems).

If you are using Windows 3.1, a work-around is as follows:

• Open up your WIN.INI file
• Look for the section labeled [mach32]
• Change the CacheCharacters setting to “off”
• Save the modified WIN.INI file
• Restart Windows

Unfortunately this will slow down video performance. WINBENCH results are 16 million with CacheCharacters on and only 7 million with them turned off. For most purposes, though, there will be little noticeable difference in speed.

Answer: Turn off the Smart Quotes option in your program.

Answer: The IPA fonts are identified to Windows applications as symbol fonts. Some Windows 3.1 applications, including Write, have a problem with symbol fonts. If you are using Windows 3.1, edit your WIN.INI file. Go to the [fonts] section and find the listing for the IPA93 fonts (SILDoulos IPA93 Regular, etc.). Move it to the top of the [fonts] section. This should eliminate the problem.

Answer: Yes! They will work in most Windows applications that support TrueType fonts. (However, they do not work properly in Microsoft Works for Windows, Microsoft Excel, or WordPad.)

The Macintosh version of these fonts will work in most Mac applications that support TrueType fonts. (However, they do not work properly in Quark XPress or Microsoft Word 2004.)

Answer: This problem occurs with both WordPad and with Works, and appears to be a bug in the WordPad and Works programs. We have discovered this type of problem occurs with the following characters in the SIL Encore IPA93 fonts:

A work-around is to type the character (access code) in Times New Roman, then change the font to the desired IPA93 font.

Answer: That depends on the version of Ventura you are using. There should be no problems in versions 5.0 and later. However, in versions 4.2 and earlier not all characters will be accessible. For compatibility with text files from previous versions, Ventura used its own character set. Supporting full character access with Ventura 4.x and earlier would have severely limited the number of characters in the font. Ventura 4.x users will be better served by the full release of the SIL Encore Fonts. (Click here for information on the SIL Encore Fonts.)

Answer: We are grateful to David Kamholz for the following information:

Instructions for creating and running this macro:

• Download this text file, open it in a text editor, copy the text to your clipboard.
• Open your document in Word 2004
• Choose Tools / Macro / Visual Basic Editor
• In the VB Editor: Choose View / Code or press  F7  to view the code editor
• Paste the macro text in.
• Choose View / Microsoft Word or click in your document window to dismiss the VB editor.
• Choose Tools / Macro / Macros....
• Select the SILConvert macro and click Run.

Word 2004 Macro Lorna A. Priest, 2005-10-27 Download "Word2004Macro.txt", Text document, 2KB [5505 downloads]

Answer: See below.

Answer: See below.

Answer: See above.

If the previous question and answer did not solve you problem, read on.

We have tested Word 2004 for Macintosh with the SIL IPA93 fonts and have confirmed that they "do not play well together." The problem is due to incompatibilities between the encoding of the SIL IPA93 fonts and Word's mapping to Unicode.

(Basically, the SIL IPA93 fonts are encoded as symbol fonts rather than normal text fonts (because doing so enabled more characters to be included in the font). Back when the IPA93 fonts were developed, in the days of Windows 3.1, Mac OS 7, and Word 2-6, Word treated symbol fonts and normal text fonts in the same way. However, beginning with Word 98/98, Word began treating symbol fonts and normal text fonts differently. Symbol fonts were assumed to contain symbols, not word-building characters. When Word mapped the characters between the old-style 8-bit encoding used in Windows 3.1 and Mac OS 7-9 and Unicode encoding, characters from symbol fonts were mapped to an area of Unicode called the Private Use Area (PUA) rather than the language-specific ranges of Unicode. The rectangles that appear when you open an existing document using the SIL IPA93 fonts in Word 2004 is due to the mapping of the characters in the file to the PUA.

Here's a summary of what we understand to be the case at this point.

First, here's a little background that will help the explanation that follows make sense:

• As stated above, the problem is due to mapping between the 8-bit symbol encoding in the SIL IPA93 fonts and the Private Use Area (PUA) of Unicode. (The IPA93 characters are mapped to the PUA because the IPA93 fonts are encoded as symbol fonts.)
• In the past, in order to facilitate transfering documents between Mac and Windows systems, we recommended including the SIL IPA93 fonts in the list of symbol fonts in the Word Font Substitutes (WFS) file. (For details, click here.)

With that background, let's move forward:

Creating new documents with Word 2004 and the SIL IPA93 fonts

Based on a few experiments, we believe it is possible for Word 2004 to display the characters in the IPA93 fonts if (a) you ensure that these fonts are NOT named as Symbol fonts in the WFS file, and (b) the document contains the PUA characters F020..F0FF. However, these characters cannot be entered with a regular English keyboard; you'll need a keyboard that generates characters in that PUA range. Until a user-friendly PUA keyboard layout is created, you will have to choose between (tediously) entering the characters as Unicode hex values using the Hex Input keyboard, or (tediously) inserting the characters via the Character Palate. (These keyboards can be enabled through System Preferences/Personal/International/Input Menu.)

Tools and documentation for creating a PUA keyboard are available here. In particular, Ukelele could be used to build a PUA layout. (However, we are not aware of any such product currently available.)

Viewing existing documents that use the SIL IPA93 fonts in Word 2004

For existing documents, if the user had defined the IPA fonts as Symbol fonts in WFS, then what actually gets saved in the document is the PUA codes. Then, if you remove those definitions from WFS and open the file in Word 2004, they should show up as expected.

If the existing document was created without the IPA fonts being defined as Symbol fonts, then we assume what gets saved is regular Latin character codes, and Word 2004 won't be able to display these with the IPA fonts. (Macros to fix up this situation could perhaps be written, but we are not aware of any such product currently available.)

So in summary, using the SIL IPA93 fonts with Word 2004 is fairly difficult at this time. You're probably better off staying with Word X when using the SIL IPA93 fonts.

Answer: See below.

Answer: Several users of the SIL IPA93 fonts and Quark XPress for Macintosh have reported incompatibilities between the fonts and XPress. They report that the IPA93 fonts will work in other applications, but not in Quark XPress. XPress not only has problems recognizing the fonts, but when writing a PostScript file, XPress substitutes Courier for the IPA93 fonts. We understand that XPress uses its own Postscript driver, not the standard system driver, and this means that it will be handling font access, downloading, etc. by itself, which is why it behaves differently than other applications.

Unfortunately, we have not found a solution.

One user reported that he was able to make a PDF successfully with PDFWriter, but not with Distiller.

Another user reported that the fonts work and distill properly when used in MS Word and Adobe Illustrator, but not in Adobe InDesign. (However, we have used them successfully in Adobe InDesign.)

If there is a way to make XPress use the standard printer driver instead of "doing its own thing," that might be worth a try.

If Text Smoothing is available in XPress, try turning it off.

Of course, the fonts themselves must be installed in the correct locations. In OS 7-9, fonts should be placed in the Fonts folder in the OS System folder. In OS X, fonts may be placed in four different places:

• the Library:Fonts folder in the Home directory of a user account;
• the Library:Fonts folder;
• the Library:Fonts folder in the Mac OS X System folder; and
• the Fonts folder in the OS 9.2 (“Classic”) System folder.

Fonts in (a) are usable only to the user of that account. Fonts in (b) are available to all users. Fonts in (c) are also available to all users, but are essential for system use. Fonts in (d) are used by Classic applications, as well as by applications running in OS X. In all cases, the fonts must all be “loose” in the System:Fonts folder or Library:Fonts folder -– not grouped in family folders -– or the system cannot see them.

Answer: We are indebted to  Professor John Wells of University College London for the information that follows.

In order to use the SIL IPA fonts with WordPerfect, it will be necessary to disable some of the WPWin Quickcorrect functions: from Tools, choose QuickCorrect, then Options; then in Sentence Corrections turn off Capitalize First Letter, and turn off the quotes under both Single SmartQuotes and Double SmartQuotes. This prevents odd behavior when the quotes key is pressed with an SIL IPA font selected.

When printing with the SIL IPA fonts, make sure to choose the Windows printer driver (not the WordPerfect printer driver). You may also encounter a problem printing certain characters – particularly diacritics – in the SIL IPA fonts. To avoid this, set the code page within Wordperfect 8 as follows:

• From the Format menu select fonts
• From the resulting Font window select font map
• From the Edit Printer / Document Font Mapping window select Code Pages
• In the Face box select each of the SIL IPA fonts in turn and set the Code page to 1252 Windows US Standard. (They will probably be set to Default initially).