Typing in Greek

Sarah Abowitz
Smith College Classics Department

Windows
1. Down at the lower right corner of the screen, click the letters ENG, then select Language
Preferences in the pop-up menu. If these letters are not present at the lower right corner
of the screen, open Settings, click on Time & Language, then select Region & Language
in the sidebar to get to the proper screen for step 2.
2. When this window opens, check if​ ​Ελληνικά/Greek is in the list of keyboards on your
computer under Languages. If so, go to step 3. Otherwise, click Add A New Language.
Clicking Add A New Language will take you to this window. Look for Ελληνικά/Greek and click it.

When you click Ελληνικά/Greek, the language will be added and you will return to the previous
screen.
3. Now that Ελληνικά is listed in your computer’s languages, click it and then click Options.
4. Click Add A Keyboard and add the Greek Polytonic option. If you started this tutorial
without the pictured keyboard menu in step 1, it should be in the lower right corner of
your screen now.
5. To start typing in Greek, click the letters ENG next to the clock in the lower right corner
of the screen. Choose “Greek Polytonic keyboard” to start typing in greek, and click “US
keyboard” again to go back to English.
Mac
1. Click the apple button in the top left corner of your screen. From the drop-down menu,
choose System Preferences. When the window below appears, click the “Keyboard”
icon.
2. Select the “Input Menu” tab. Make sure the “Show Input menu in menu bar” checkbox is
checked. Then, click on the plus button here.
3. You should see a window that looks like the one below. Scroll through the directory on
the left and select Greek, then select Greek Polytonic. Make sure you highlight Greek
Polytonic, selecting Greek will not give you access to all the diacritical marks that exist in
the older dialects. When you are ready, click Add.

4. To start typing in Greek, click the flag next to the clock in the top right corner of the
screen. Choose “Greek Polytonic” to start typing in greek, and click “U.S.” again to go
back to English.
Typing In Greek
Most letters correspond directly to their English counterparts (i.e. a returns α [alpha], e returns ε
[epsilon], etc.). Others are less obvious: u returns θ (theta), y returns υ (upsilon), w returns ς
(final sigma), v returns ω (omega), j returns ξ (ksi), c returns ψ (psi), and h returns η (eta).

Adding diacritical marks:

Type the diacritical key(s) given, then the letter you want the accent to attach to. For example,
;a returns ά. Some accent and breathing combinations have key mappings of their own, and the
specific conventions differ between Mac and Windows.

Windows Diacritical Keys

For some of the more complicated combinations here, you will have to hold down the Ctrl, AltGr,
and/or Shift keys to type that diacritic. All combinations also work with capital letters. When we
refer to the AltGr key on the keyboard, we are referring to the right alt key, or whatever key is
mapped to AltGr on your terminal. To see where this key is on standard computers, go to
Operating the On-Screen Keyboard in Windows.

Diacritical Key Combination Returns Looks like

Q acute accent ί

: umlaut/dieresis ϊ

‘ smooth breathing ἰ

“ rough breathing ἱ

[ circumflex ῖ

{ iota subscript ῳ

] grave accent ὶ

/ acute accent and smooth breathing ἴ

? acute accent and rough breathing ἵ

\ grave accent and smooth breathing ἲ

| grave accent and rough breathing ἳ

= circumflex and smooth breathing ἶ

+ circumflex and rough breathing ἷ

 - macron ᾱ

AltGr & Q acute and iota subscript ᾴ

AltGr & [ circumflex and iota subscript ᾷ

AltGr & ] grave and iota subscript ᾲ

AltGr & \ smooth breathing, grave and iota subscript ᾂ

AltGr & | rough breathing, grave and iota subscript ᾃ

AltGr & ‘ smooth breathing and iota subscript ᾀ

AltGr & “ rough breathing and iota subscript ᾁ

AltGr & / smooth breathing, acute and iota subscript ᾄ

AltGr & ? rough breathing, acute and iota subscript ᾅ

AltGr & = smooth breathing, circumflex and iota ᾆ

subscript

AltGr & + rough breathing, circumflex and iota subscript ᾇ

` umlaut/diaresis and acute ΐ

AltGr & ` umlaut/diaresis and circumflex ῗ

~ umlaut/diaresis and grave ῒ

With both versions, there are handy keyboard shortcuts for switching between the language
inputs and also between the various keyboard inputs for each language. Use the left-side Alt +
Shift to switch among the installed languages. If you are using two different inputs for a single
language, such as if you left the modern Greek input enabled along side the Polytonic Greek
layout, then you can use the left-side Ctrl + Shift to switch between the modern and polytonic
layouts.

Mac Diacritical Keys

Mac allows breathings, accents, and other diacritics to be combined. For instance, /a returns ἄ,
but so will ;’a or ‘;a. All combinations also work with the upper case. The below table only lists
key combinations that can be pressed all at once before typing the letter for those diacritics.
Because the semicolon is used in Ancient Greek but a diacritical mark is already mapped to that
key, typing q on the polytonic keyboard will yield ; .

Diacritical Key Combination Returns Looks like

 ; acute accent ί

: umlaut/dieresis ϊ

‘ smooth breathing ἰ

“ rough breathing ἱ

[ or opt & ​I circumflex ῖ

{ iota subscript ῳ

] grave accent ὶ

/ acute accent and smooth breathing ἴ

? acute accent and rough breathing ἵ

= grave accent and smooth breathing ἲ

+ grave accent and rough breathing ἳ

- circumflex and smooth breathing ἶ

_ circumflex and rough breathing ἷ

Shift+W umlaut/diaresis and acute accent ΐ

Shift+Option+L macron ῑ

Learning via Keyboard Viewer

When I first started learning how to type polytonically, it helped me to have a keyboard viewer
on my screen I could look at for reference. Here is how to open each keyboard viewer for each
system and what each keyboard state looks like.
Opening the On-Screen Keyboard in Windows
You can find the On-Screen Keyboard by typing it in the Cortana search bar at the bottom of the
screen and to the left. Alternatively, you can access this app by clicking the Windows logo to
open the start menu, looking for a folder called Windows Ease of Access, and upon opening
that folder, launching On-Screen Keyboard from there. Opened, you may see a window looking
like this:

Windows Natural State

Windows Shift State

Windows AltGr State

Windows Shift AltGr State

Opening the Keyboard Viewer in Mac

To open the keyboard viewer, click the keyboard indicator next to the clock in the top right
corner of the screen and select Show Keyboard Viewer.
Mac Natural State

Mac Shift State

Mac Option State

Mac Shift + Option State

A note on fonts

Sometimes when you start typing in Greek or if you paste from TLG or Perseus, it will not look
super coherent, like this:

This is because Times New Roman and other fonts do not have all the accented Greek
characters, so it replaces ones it doesn’t have, sometimes in Tahoma, sometimes in another
font more fitting. To get around this, select all your Greek text and change its font to either
Tahoma or Palatino Linotype. Palatino Linotype fits in better with Times New Roman, Tahoma
better with Arial and other sans-serif fonts. Palatino Linotype runs a little larger than Times New
Roman, but this can be fixed by sizing Greek text down to 11pt for a 12pt document. If you’re
working on Google Docs, their Arial equivalent of polytonic Greek works well alongside Arial
font, and Cambria fits in best with Times New Roman and similar fonts.

Sharing documents

Mac OSX and Windows use different fonts to handle Greek. Greek characters in a document
written on a Windows computer may not appear correctly on a Mac computer, and vice versa. If
you need to share your document with someone using a different operating system, it is best to
share it in hard copy or to save or export the document as a PDF. In the File menu of Word,
there should be a Save As... or Export… choice which allows you to create another version of
your file, and it also allows you to choose what to name it as and where to put it.