Keyboard Going Berserk in Word 2011 (Mac) on OSX Yosemite

[Timothy Fox]

Hi all,

I posted a couple weeks ago as I was having trouble making a keyboard layout for an old legacy Greek font (for an older friend who doesn't want to learn a new way to type). You all were very helpful in resolving that issue. 

However, I've just installed the layout onto his computer, a Mac running OSX Yosemite. The keyboard layout works fine in everything but Word 2011, where it goes crazy after about five or six keystrokes. For each keystroke, it started giving multiple outputs of the same character (2 or more), inserting weird tabs/spaces, etc. It works completely fine on my computer, which is running Word 2008. 

Any ideas? I've attached the keylayout file to this post.

Another question — his version of Word is also not recognizing the installation of SBL Hebrew font. It's installed in the fontbook, and other programs (like Pages) can see and select the font, but Word can't, even after restarts/re-logins. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Tim

[Sorin Paliga]

My guess is that Word 2011 cannot handle combined diacritical marks, and goes crazy. Try to free download of the forthcoming Office 2016 suite for mac, I guess it will work OK. Alto, give a try to the last LibreOffice version, I think it also begins to handle CDMs.
In order to fully test what you wish, use a word processor which works, write a relevant list of words with as many CDMs as possible, then paste the text into Word 2011. If it fails to comply with the prerequisites, then it is anyway useless to go un trying your keylayout in Word 2011, as the result will be bad anyway.
You already have a quite long list of wp-s, which beautifully handle Old Greek (Nisus, Mellel, Pages – the new generation only, Word 2016, LibreOffice–the last version only etc.)
> On 22 Apr 2015, at 16:48, Timothy Fox <timot...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <Graeca.keylayout>

[W.P.J. Rietbroek]

Hi Tim,

> On 22 Apr 2015, at 15:48, Timothy Fox <timot...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>

> Another question — his version of Word is also not recognizing the installation of SBL Hebrew font. It's installed in the fontbook, and other programs (like Pages) can see and select the font, but Word can't, even after restarts/re-logins. Any ideas?

MS Word for OS X versions 2011 and earlier cannot handle Hebrew at all, unfortunately. The same goes for other bidirectional writing systems. I do not know about the 2016 Preview version, but that is still only a preview.

Mellel works best with Hebrew OpenType fonts like SBL Hebrew, IMO.

Best,

Pim

[Timothy Fox]

Hi Cattus,

Thanks for this. Ideally, I'd really like to resolve this within Word 2011, as I'm helping someone who is not terribly computer savvy and cannot easily learn a new word processor. The normal "Polytonic Greek" keyboard worked fine on his computer with Word 2011, including complex diacritical marks. I found another post on here about an issue with the plist file in Ukelele layouts—you need to change the keyboard language manually to "el" (=modern Greek) in order for Word 2011 to work properly. Does this sound correct? I'd really appreciate any help someone could give me.

Re: SBL Hebrew on Word — yes, this is a real pain (my copy of Word 2008 also doesn't see the truly-installed SBL Hebrew font). A friend says that the font SBL BibLit (which contains both SBL Greek and SBL Hebrew) should work in Word. We'll see!  

[Geke]

Hi Timothy,

Yes, that change of classical into modern Greek looks like the thing to do.
Are you confident to change that plist file yourself? Otherwise send me the bundle and I’ll do it for you.

[Sorin Paliga]

I see, but I am afraid there is a compatibility issue.

If the keylayout works correctly with others apps (it does, doesn’t it?), then the issue is with Word 2011, not with the keylayout. If an app refuses to work properly within the given conditions, I am afraid you cannot force it to do so, but adapt to what you can do properly. 

But, yes, try to modify the plist as suggested by Geke, maybe this works. 

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[Timothy Fox]

Dear Geke (and all),

Yes, I'm comfortable just changing the plist file by editing it in textedit—right? Once I do that—do I just move the entire package file into the "Keyboard Layouts" folder (Mac) as I would with a *.keylayout file? (Followed by a restart, etc.)

Thanks!

Tim

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[Geke]

Right—I think. This is new territory for me too, mind you.
Inside the plist file, there are maybe 10 instances of this script declaration and I don’t understand what they are all for. Maybe each one is for a certain interface language? Anyway, I’d probably make the change to New Greek for all those instances.

Some thoughts:
- Don’t edit a bundle that’s in a Keyboard Layouts folder; take it out, edit it and put it back. You’re dealing with system software, so better operate in a disciplined manner.
- Avoid having two copies in the Keyboard Layouts folder (old one and edited one); the identical IDs may confuse the System.
- Consider keeping a log: note down each step as you’re taking it and what the result is. That way, if unexpected things start to happen, you can later reproduce it or analyse why something may have gone wrong.
- I always put layouts in the User/Library/Keyboard Layouts folder, not the System/Library/Keyboard Layouts folder. Then I don’t restart, just log out and log back in.

Op woensdag 29 april 2015 10:58:47 UTC+2 schreef Timothy Fox: