Hello Andy and everybody,

A> The alternative to the MS-Word entry method below is creating "macros" to
A> generate the special characters. The macros would work better,

Below is an explanation how to set up macros.

A> System requirements: The font 'Arial Unicode MS' and 'MS-Word 97' (or
A> better).

There are also compatible Unicode fonts at
http://zencomp.com/greatwisdom/fonts/
They are compact, for example, CN-Times is only 0,9 Mb in size. Few
people will be willing to download huge Arial Unicode MS just to read
a single document.

How to create keyboard shortcuts for Unicode Pali letters:

1.
A> a) open a new document in MS-Word
A> b) main, top-level menu "Insert"->"Symbol..."
A> c) Choose 'Font: ' Arial Unicode MS (or another Unicode font)
A> d) Choose 'Subset: ' Basic Latin
A> e) find the '~n' character in the table and click on it
A> f) press the button 'Insert'
A> e) press the button 'Close'
A> g) in the document, select the ~n character with your mouse
A> h) main, top-level menu "Insert"->"AutoText"->"AutoText..."

2. "Insert"->"AutoText"->"New..."->"OK"

3. "Tools"->"Customize..."->button "Keyboard..."

4. in "Categories:" list - select "AutoText"

5. in "AutoText" list select the character [it may show as a small, empty
square - or even as a completely different character in the list] to which
no 'current shortcut keys' are assigned.

6. position cursor in "Press new shortcut key" area

7. press desired keystroke (<Alt>-a, <Alt>-t, or whatever), button "Assign",
button "Close", button "Close"

Notes: with the AutoText method, you will get the character only in the font
you specified.

A> Here is where you can find the Pali special characters in the font 'Subset:
A> ' groups:

A> ~n Basic Latin
A> aa Latin Extended-A
A> ii Latin Extended-A
A> uu Latin Extended-A
A> (Subset: Latin Extended Additional is way down the list of subsets)
A> .d Latin Extended Additional
A> .l Latin Extended Additional
A> .m Latin Extended Additional
A> .n Latin Extended Additional
A> "n Latin Extended Additional
A> .t Latin Extended Additional

Why Unicode? I use it because such fonts:
- fully support multilingual document, without overlapping of
characters;
- one can search and replace any character (solving the problem with
.t retroflexive in other fonts);
- one can easily convert Word documents to HTML format without losing
any characters;
- most Pali characters in such HTML documents (except retroflexive)
will be displayed correctly even without the Unicode font.

Mettena cittena,
Dimitry