IPA Font in LibreOffice

Manuel_Kaufmann · September 3, 2011, 7:12pm

Hello,

I'm having an issue with the IPA font in LibreOffice. I'm using the
"TeX tipatt8" font I was doing all my text transcription to the
corresponding phonetics symbols without any problem.

But now, I'm trying to mark the allophones into my transcription. I
found this Manual[1] that explains how to use this font with LaTeX,
but I couldn't do it with LibreOffice.

I tried with LaTeX and I could without any problem. Check the image below:

* http://www.diigo.com/item/image/1msf9/r7xp?size=o

Can you help me?

I'm trying to add that symbol to my transcriptions. Just in case, this
is the LaTeX code that I'm using to generate that image:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,english]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tipa}

\begin{document}

\textipa{D\u{eI}}

\end{document}

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

[1] www.tex.ac.uk/CTAN/obsolete/fonts/tipa/tipaman.ps

Tom_Davies · September 4, 2011, 11:31am

Hi
What format is the font? ttf or something?
Regards from
Tom

Jean-Louis_Oneto · September 4, 2011, 11:49am

Hello,
Do you know this site:
http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software_catalog.asp?by=cat&name=Font
they have a lot of fonts, mostly free, including IPA fonts.
HTH,
Regards,
Jean-Louis

krackedpress · September 4, 2011, 1:39pm

Well, there is a LaTeX extensions for Writer, if that helps.

phonetics?
If I remember right, Arial Unicode has phonetic glyphs in it.

Use Arial Unicode font in Insert>"Special Character" and choose IPA Extensions for the subset? There are 92 glyphs listed there.

Then there are the dedicated Phonetic fonts. You still will need to use the Insert Special Character option.

http://www.font-zone.com/download.php?fid=1569

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/Fonts/

http://www.unc.edu/~jlsmith/ipa-fonts.html

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ipa.htm

Jean-Louis_Oneto · September 4, 2011, 3:15pm

There is also a lot of goodies on the sitye of the IPA:
http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/ipafonts.html
and IPA keyboards softwares on the SIL site:
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?&item_id=UniIPAKeyboard
Regards,
Jean-Louis

NoOp · September 4, 2011, 6:46pm

...

It is always helpful if you let people know what version of LO /and/
what Operating System you are using.

On my system (linux Ubuntu 10.10), I have that font in:
/usr/share/texmf/fonts/type1/fkr/tipa
For some reason LO isn't picking up all the fonts in /usr/share
(discussed in a previous thread, but I can't recall the Subject just
now) - even when the font is installed as a system font.

In order to get the tipatt8 font to work in LO (versions 3.3.4 & 3.4.3)
I had to copy /both/ the tippa8.afm and tippa8.pfb to ~/.fonts. The font
now shows up when I scroll to select fonts starting with 'T'. Oddly
enough, rather than 'TeX tippa8' being displayed in the dropdown
selection, it is displayed as greek symbols'tippa8, so you need to look
closely after putting the .afm and .pfb in ~/.fonts

I can insert all of the characters in your example. Unfortunately the
character between 'e' and 'I' spaces (U+02D8) (˘) as a single character
so it is not shown as an accent to 'e' but as it's own character.
Perhaps someone more familiar with using dead/compose keys etc., (Johnny
Rosen?) can assist with that part.

Hope that helps.

krackedpress · September 4, 2011, 7:02pm

There are some good IPA fonts that seem to work fine on Ubuntu 10.04 and insert the characters using Insert Special Character, without dealing with LaTex specific fonts and the LaTex extension. If all the person needs is the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols, then using a font specifically for that might work the best. Charis-SIL, Doulos-SIL, and Gentium[plus], are all free and are listed on a UCLA site dedicated to IPA and fonts that have the symbols needed for Phonetics. I looked this up before I gave my answer to the thread-earlier. You have no need to use the Compose Special Characters, if you use the proper font[s].

NoOp · September 4, 2011, 10:30pm

On 09/04/2011 11:45 AM, NoOp wrote:
,

In order to get the tipatt8 font to work in LO (versions 3.3.4 & 3.4.3)
I had to copy /both/ the tippa8.afm and tippa8.pfb to ~/.fonts. The font
now shows up when I scroll to select fonts starting with 'T'. Oddly
enough, rather than 'TeX tippa8' being displayed in the dropdown
selection, it is displayed as greek symbols'tippa8, so you need to look
closely after putting the .afm and .pfb in ~/.fonts

I can insert all of the characters in your example. Unfortunately the
character between 'e' and 'I' spaces (U+02D8) (˘) as a single character
so it is not shown as an accent to 'e' but as it's own character.
Perhaps someone more familiar with using dead/compose keys etc., (Johnny
Rosen?) can assist with that part.

Using 'Tex ttpa8':

U+0044
U+0115
U+026A

results in:
ðĕɪ

In LO 3.3.4 and LO 3.4.3 (linux) on my system.

krackedpress · September 4, 2011, 11:49pm

Here is a PDF I created that shows the Phonetic symbols/glyphs in the Gentium font recommended by a UCLA site.

http://libreoffice-na.us/gentium.pdf

My question really is still, if you have a font that has all the phonetic symbols in it, why would you want to use some othere means to re-create them?

This was made by two screen clips of FontForge's view of the characters/glyphs in a Gentium font.

The original email stated that the person wanted to have the IPA symbols/glyphs in his LO document. He could do it in LaTeX, but he had trouble in LO without "TeX". He wanted to know how to do this.

My answer is to use a working IPA font and use Insert>Special Character.
It works for me, just fine, on LO 3.4.1 on Ubuntu 64-bit.

NoOp · September 5, 2011, 7:01pm

Here is a PDF I created that shows the Phonetic symbols/glyphs in the
Gentium font recommended by a UCLA site.

http://libreoffice-na.us/gentium.pdf

See:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38347

Your pdf shows invalid colorspace in Adobe Reader 9.4.1 (linux).

My question really is still, if you have a font that has all the
phonetic symbols in it, why would you want to use some othere means to
re-create them?

...

I've no issue with using other fonts. The OP asked about using 'Tex
ttpa8' & I responded with what I found with *that* font.

NoOp · September 5, 2011, 7:14pm

...
Correction: Adobe Reader 9.4.2 (linux). Added note: the pdf _does_ open
OK in Evince, Okular, etc. It only seems to be an issue with Adobe Reader.

krackedpress · September 5, 2011, 8:02pm

I do not use Adobe Reader, but the default reader on Ubuntu.
Actually it was created by Export to PDF with LO 3.4.1 Ubuntu 64-bit.
I could have use CUPS-PDF, but since it was to go with a LO thread, I used the internal PDF system.

SO if there is an issue with the PDF file, look towards LO.

NoOp · September 5, 2011, 9:17pm

Yes it is an LO issue. Why don't you actually _read_ (and perhaps
contribute to) https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38347

krackedpress · September 5, 2011, 11:12pm

To avoid the problem/issue. . . . .

So, should I uncheck PDF/A-1a?
Or should I just use CUPS-PDF?

NoOp · September 5, 2011, 11:38pm

Until the bug is resolved I'd recommend doing both. Note that this seems
to only occur w/64bit. And... of course we should start a new thread
regarding this instead of continuing to go off track in "IPA Font in
LibreOffice". With apologies to the OP.

Tom_Davies · September 6, 2011, 9:27am

Hi
Yes, just use Cups-Pdf if that's what you use anyway. Also you are safe since
you are using a 32bit OS. The option is unchecked by default so you are
unlikely to have bumped into this problem even if both the other things weren't
protecting you from the problem Lol
Regards from
Tom

krackedpress · September 6, 2011, 1:14pm

Sorry, but for me, I use 64-bit Ubuntu