accents and euro signs

[Jan Janssen]

>>> Explain what you need to do, and why.
>>
>> Enter various symbols in a word processor. I'm dutch, and my language
>> frequently uses accents ë é è ê etc. (or:
>>
>> " / \ ^
>> e e e e etc. etc.

>Yes, unfortunately this outcome requires use of a particular font. That in
>turn requires use of a particular keyboard mapping. You can get the
>accented characters for most European languages by choosing the right font
>and the right keyboard layout, but you cannot get a universal solution
>using just one keyboard and one font. That is why there are special
>keyboard mappings and special fonts.

Hmz...
Thanks for your response. But I'm still not convinced. Firstly, most
true type fonts contain _all_ neccesary characters, as well as the
unicode-number they're supposed to represent. If I run the "character map"
tool, it shows that all the fonts I use contain an e-umlaut, and they are
all shown at position 235 (or hex eb) of codepage 0. In Windows, I just
type alt+00eb, meaning character eb of codepage 00. Unicode has been
accepted as a standard a long time ago.

I'm not talking japanese here, just normal characters. All linux-fonts I
have contain these characters. If I use a word processor, I can use these
characters and change font without them changing.

I do believe you if you say no-one you know has implemented an elegant
solution for Linux, but I _do_ know, that Microsoft solved it for its
Windows. (And I use the same fonts for Linux I used to use for Windows).
So it's not logically impossible.

I do use a US-keyboard, which is fine for programming. Dutch keyboards
"hide" many characters like &, $, @ and {. For the time being, I just type
flawed Dutch or use the character map. Maybe someone will invent a better
way.

If someone does, please let me know!

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