Typing mathematical unicode characters on Windows 7

[Eebster the Great]

I have been looking for ways to input unicode characters directly from the keyboard in Windows 7, and found some stuff about EnableHexNumpad. With this, I can type all characters up to U0FFFF with Alt + [Plus], then the code , but I can't seem to type anything U10000 or beyond. I'm particularly interested in the mathematical characters on that plane. Is there no way to enter these directly, so I have to find them and copypaste?

[eligitine]

http://www.fileformat.info/tool/unicodeinput/index.htm
This is the tool I use, but you can also look here

http://www.fileformat.info/tip/microsoft/enter_unicode.htm

[Eebster the Great]

The tool seems to be working, except when I enter characters, it doesn't print the right one. I get two squares instead of math bold, for instance. But when I copy and paste the relevant characters, they show up properly.

[eligitine]

For me, that usually has to do with fonts. Most fonts can't handle the higher Unicode characters.

[Eebster the Great]

For me, that usually has to do with fonts. Most fonts can't handle the higher Unicode characters.

Right, but what I mean is, I can display characters like 𝐀𝐁𝐂𝐃𝐄𝐅𝐆𝐇𝐈𝐉𝐊𝐋𝐌𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐐𝐑𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐕𝐖𝐗𝐘𝐙𝐚𝐛𝐜𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐠𝐡𝐢𝐣𝐤𝐥𝐦𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐪𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐯𝐰𝐱𝐲𝐳𝟎𝟏𝟐𝟑𝟒𝟓𝟔𝟕𝟖𝟗, but I can't enter them in any way I have yet found. I can't enter them with alt +, I can't enter them with the tool posted, and I can't even find them on charmap. All I can do is copy and paste. It's very frustrating.

[EvanED]

Someone should port SCIM to Windows. That lets you enter Unicode characters with tex macros (where there's overlap).

[Xanthir]

The tool seems to be working, except when I enter characters, it doesn't print the right one. I get two squares instead of math bold, for instance. But when I copy and paste the relevant characters, they show up properly.

This implies that someone in the chain between the input method and whatever you're pasting into doesn't understand the astral planes, assumes that those characters (which are almost certainly encoded in UTF-16 using surrogates, as that's what most OSes use) are invalid, and replaces them with the replacement character U+FFFD.

[Eebster the Great]

The tool seems to be working, except when I enter characters, it doesn't print the right one. I get two squares instead of math bold, for instance. But when I copy and paste the relevant characters, they show up properly.

This implies that someone in the chain between the input method and whatever you're pasting into doesn't understand the astral planes, assumes that those characters (which are almost certainly encoded in UTF-16 using surrogates, as that's what most OSes use) are invalid, and replaces them with the replacement character U+FFFD.

Yeah, that's definitely what's happening, since the problem only exists with characters beyond the BMP. Do you have any idea how to resolve this, or is it probably overly complicated? It's not in any sense a big deal, just annoying.

[eligitine]

I was reading up, and it appears that with most major browers, it works correctly (if you have a font that supports it), but if you type it on a page that is is using a charset that doesn't support it, it will not be transmitted to the website correctly.

[Eebster the Great]

I was reading up, and it appears that with most major browers, it works correctly (if you have a font that supports it), but if you type it on a page that is is using a charset that doesn't support it, it will not be transmitted to the website correctly.

I'm typing it into Notepad though.

[eligitine]

Notepad supports very little unicode with its loaded fonts.

[Eebster the Great]

Notepad supports very little unicode with its loaded fonts.

But it clearly supports these characters in that font, like I said before, it's just entering them that's the issue. I think it's a system problem, not an application one.

[eligitine]

It supports the character, but in a different font. Notepad has a hard time switching automatically, you need to switch to a font that supports the character before entering it in. When you paste it, it pastes it in the right font.

[Eebster the Great]

Notepad++ isn't any better. Do you have a recommendation?

[eligitine]

I would use wordpad. Its not the best option, but it has a better time switching between fonts. The only problem is you have to press Alt-X after typing some hex digits to get it to work.

[Eebster the Great]

Wordpad gives me ASCII characters instead of the proper ones.

I think I'm going to sort of give up on this, since even if there is a solution it's unlikely to be very easy.

[hotaru]

babelpad should work...

[Xanthir]

I prefer the simplest text editor: data:text/html;charset=utf-8,<pre contenteditable>. Just paste that into the address bar, and you get all the goodness of browsers handling unicode pretty well.

[EvanED]

I prefer the simplest text editor: data:text/html;charset=utf-8,<pre contenteditable>. Just paste that into the address bar, and you get all the goodness of browsers handling unicode pretty well.

That's hilarious, but everyone knows that the simplest text editor is cat.

(I actually make files with cat... one of my friends says I'm sick in the head.)

[hotaru]

That's hilarious, but everyone knows that the simplest text editor is cat.

no, it isn't. echo is simpler.

[Eebster the Great]

I prefer the simplest text editor: data:text/html;charset=utf-8,<pre contenteditable>. Just paste that into the address bar, and you get all the goodness of browsers handling unicode pretty well.

I don't get it.

[Xanthir]

I prefer the simplest text editor: data:text/html;charset=utf-8,<pre contenteditable>. Just paste that into the address bar, and you get all the goodness of browsers handling unicode pretty well.

I don't get it.

If you need a simple text editor that can handle unicode properly, take the above data: url and paste it into your browser's address bar. It won't work in older IE, but every other browser understands data urls. (Depending on your browser's default styles, you may have to click up at the top to get a cursor initially, because the <pre> is only 1 line tall.)

I *think* I'm the first person to have used this method in public to generate a text-editor on the fly, and made it semi-popular by using it in several talks when I suddenly needed some way to type out some example code.

[Jplus]

Wait. Are there more html tags to which one may add the contenteditable property?

[hotaru]

Wait. Are there more html tags to which one may add the contenteditable property?

The global attributes below can be used on any HTML5 element.

[Eebster the Great]

That tag doesn't do anything but generate a blank page on my Firefox 11. I can't click anywhere or type anything.

[phlip]

Try giving it some starting text, like:
data:text/html,<pre contenteditable>click here

Incidentally, I use data URIs all the time to get unicode text... I'll often go to data:text/html,&ndash; or data:text/html,&%23x1234; or something, and copy/paste the resulting character...

[Eebster the Great]

Try giving it some starting text, like:
data:text/html,<pre contenteditable>click here

Ah, that works. I still can't type characters beyond the BMP though. BUT:

Incidentally, I use data URIs all the time to get unicode text... I'll often go to data:text/html,&ndash; or data:text/html,&%23x1234; or something, and copy/paste the resulting character...

This seems to work. For instance, data:text/html,&%23x1D400 gives 𝐀. Cool stuff.

Thanks