Inserting Letters with Diacritical Marks in a Microsoft Word Document
Mr. Dolan – December 2008
Father Judge High School
The following instructions show a couple ways to type your transliterations, without needing to
write in diacritical marks by hand.
Unless you expect to be using these characters regularly, i.e., for things other than the quarter project, I
recommend that you create a list of all the necessary characters. From that list, you can copy and paste for your
transliterations. If you will be using these characters regularly, I recommend that you create shortcut key
patterns for the characters.
In versions of Word prior to Word 2007…
Option 1 – keyboard focus
Strike the key. Next, strike the . Finally, strike the . The preceding sequence will take you to the
Symbol chart under the Insert pull-down menu.
Use your mouse to select the font you want to use. Times New Roman, Arial, and Palatino Linotype have a
large extended character set that includes most of the characters needed for Hebrew transliteration.
Either with your arrow keys or using your mouse and the scroll bar at the right of the Symbol window, scroll
through the characters to those you want to use. Hit twice to insert a character.
Option 2 – mouse focus
Mouse click on the Insert pull-down menu.
Next, select the Insert [S]ymbol option from the menu.
These two steps will take you to the Symbol chart under the Insert pull-down menu.
Use your mouse to select the font you want to use. Times New Roman, Arial, and Palatino Linotype have a
large extended character set that includes most of the characters needed for Hebrew transliteration.
Use the scroll bar at the right to scroll through the characters to those you want to use.
Double-click on whatever characters you want to insert.
After you have added all of the characters that you anticipate using, click the [ Close] button at the bottom of
the screen.
In Word 2007…
Option 1 – keyboard focus
You can use the Option 1 steps described above, or you can use the key sequence specific to Word 2007, which
is as follows: , , , .
In Word 2007, after you have inserted a character once, you can quickly select it from a small box that appears
after you strike the in the preceding sequence.
Option 2 – mouse focus
Click on the Insert tab.
At the extreme right of the Insert menu bar, select Symbol.
Use your mouse to select the font you want to use. Times New Roman, Arial, and Palatino Linotype have a
large extended character set that includes most of the characters needed for Hebrew transliteration.
Scroll through the characters to those you want to use. Double-click on whatever characters you want to
insert. After you have added all of the characters that you anticipate using, click the [Close] button at the
bottom of the screen.
I think it would be easier for you to create a list of all the characters you plan to use, then copy and paste as
needed. However, you can certainly follow the steps above to insert each character one-at-a-time as you create
your transliterations.
Fonts
Characters in Times New Roman include the following: êîûāăīĭĕōŏśšūŭ
Characters in Palatino Linotype include the following: āăēĕêūśš᾽῾
SIL Charis
If you want a font that includes all of the transliteration characters you will need, you might download,
install, and use the SIL Charis font, which is a Unicode-encoded font with a full character set. It’s the most
complete character set for transliteration that I’ve seen—and it’s free. (Cartman voice: “Sweet.”) For the *.zip
file download, go to
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/render_download.php?site_id=nrsi&format=file&media_id=CharisSIL4.104.zi
p&filename=CharisSIL4.104.zip. For the executable—one click to unzip and install—click here:
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/render_download.php?site_id=nrsi&format=file&media_id=CharisSIL4.104.e
xe&filename=CharisSIL4.104.exe.
Charis SIL includes the following characters necessary for Hebrew transliteration: ʾ ā ă ḇ ḏ ĕ ē ê ḥ ī ĭ
ō ŏ ś š ṣ ṭ ṯ û ū ʿ.
Charis SIL does not have - . However, immediately after typing a g
or p Combining Diacritical Marks.
Caveat lector: Though SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) is “a faith-based organization that studies,
documents, and assists in developing the world’s lesser-known languages,” its website is free from
pornographic, commercial, or other inappropriate content, and the downloadable materials are malware free,
I do recommend that you check with a parent before venturing onto the Internet or downloading and
installing anything.