General Information

Being that we are Greeks, we believe that we should promote the Greek language, anything Hellenistic. We have found a few web pages that we are including here that cover the Greek language, Greek education, and Greek history.

GEOS Colleges, Australia - Greek Language Links

Globalization.Com - Greek Computing Terms

Katarina Sarri's Greek Language Links

Paragon Software - Dictionaries for small handheld devices


FAQ

Here are a few frequently asked questions. If you have a question for us, please send us an email. We will answer your question and add it to our list. Thank you.

1. How is Greek text read on the Internet?

There are standards for the way characters/letters are represented in a computer. Additionally, there are standards for every language. Every country is supposed to adhere to those standards when communicating over the Internet. There's only one standard for English. However there are often multiple standards for European languages. Sometimes that can make things a little confusing. The standard that is used for Greek text is referred to as ISO-8859-7 in the US and ELOT-928 in Greece. ELOT-928 Greek text is used on the Internet. The fonts you use for your browser must be ELOT-928 to interpret Greek text properly and to create documents that can read by all computers.

You must also tell your web browser that the document is Greek text. This is done by setting document encoding preferences to Greek. The process varies on each web browser.

A additional note: The Windows-1253 setting on web browsers is the Microsoft version of the Greek standard. Windows-1253 and ISO-8859-7 differ in some respects. Even though I have colleagues and friends that tell me the setting you choose does not matter I recommend that you always choose ISO-8859-7 or Greek ISO which refers to the correct standard.

The default standard for the Mac is ELOT 823 (IBM 851), which is more commonly referred to as MacGreek. This is not the standard. Although these fonts are great for for writing printed letters, creating graphics, etc. they cannot be used for web pages or email.

2. Where can I obtain Greek fonts for Windows?

Greek fonts are available free over the internet. The most comprehensive (Windows & Mac) list is available here. This list was compiled by Luc Devroye, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

A second choice would be the Hellenic Resources Network. They have a lot of useful information about how to read and write Greek text. At this site you can also get information about Greek software. HRI will refer you to Poyliadis Associates, a Greek Company and a well-known maker of excellent Greek fonts/typesets.

If you use the Greek language frequently, you should consider investing in fonts. The best selection is available from Plaisio, a very large computer hardware/software reseller in Greece. The prices are very reasonable.

3. Where can I obtain Greek fonts for the mac?

Greek fonts are available free over the internet. Here are a few sites:

http://www.luthersem.edu/jboyce/greekI/InstallFonts.htm -- Good instructions.
http://www.hri.org/fonts/mac/
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/grk/grkfonts.html

Fonts from these sites are in a ".hqx bin-hex" compressed format. You can use "Stuffit", a data compression utility (similar to pkzip and pkunzip for win pc's) for the mac to expand the file. Stuffit is available free over the internet from Aladdin Systems, Inc., the company that makes "Stuffit".

After you have expanded the files you will find a set of fonts and a keyboard mapping file. You need to drop the font files in your system folder. The keyboard mapping file is a system extension and you need to drop it in that folder. For your browser, set the document encoding to MacGreek and use one of the Hellas fonts for the fixed and proportional fonts. The keyboard mapping file is unrelated to browsing Greek web sites and gives you the ability to type Greek with any application.

4. I type letters using a Greek font yet I CAN NOT use that font to translate Greek text on web pages. Why?

Greek text has to be ELOT-928/ISO-8859-7 to interpret Greek correctly. The font is probably not in that standard. If you are using a font to type Greek with all of the accents (commonly referred to as katherevousa, which is not modern Greek), none of these fonts are ELOT-928/ISO 8859-7.

If you are using a Mac the most commonly used font is "Symbol Greek" or "Super Greaca". We have learned through experience, some of us being Mac users ourselves, that these fonts work well for typing letters or creating graphics but is not an ELOT-928/ISO 8859-7 font.

5. Do I need to have Greek fonts installed to read text on Greek web sites?

If you're running windows 95,98,NT,2000,XP the answer is "no". All you have to do is adjust the document encoding to "Greek" and you will see Greek text.

For the mac you must download and install fonts that support the ELOT-928 standard for the Greek language. Please read question #7 for further information.

6. In a Windows environment, how do I set up my computer so I can type Greek?

Here are the instructions.

In the lower right corner you will notice a little box that says "EN". "EN" stands for English. When you use the mouse and double click on box it will prompt you to choose between Greek ("GR" or "EL") and English. When you switch you will be able to type in Greek.

Please keep in mind that this is modern Greek (Greeks call this style of Greek "demotiki"). You will need to familiarize yourself with the Greek keyboard. Accents are located over the semicolon key (Press the semicolon key and then the letter you want to put the accent over or hold the shift key down, press the semicolon key, and then the letter you want to put the accent over).

We get a lot of questions regarding the use of the other accents (referred to as "katherevousa"). There are fonts available for sale, none of which are ELOT-928. If you have questions regarding katherevousa please send us a note.

7. On the Mac, why I am having trouble reading Greek web pages? How can I correct this?

This question has a long history and its linked to the Greek people's preference for the windows platform and poor support from Apple for the Greek language.

Mac users frequently notice that they cannot read a Greek web page and the ELOT 928 / ISO 8859-7 Greek fonts available do not translate ALL the Greek characters on the web page. It's takes you 90-95% of the way but never 100%. It's frustrating. Additionally, many Greek mac users get letters/email written in Greek that were created by a windows machine that they cannot read. Again, a source of frustration.

Apple has done nothing to correct this problem with older versions of the operating system. However, if you are using the most current version of Safari and set your encoding properly, you will not have a problem.

Just in case you are curious, there is a Mac Users Group in Athens and they have a web site. There's another user's group in Thesseloniki, web site. Apple has a very small yet growing market in Greece and there are people trying to promote the mac platform in Greece. As a programmer, I believe that the mac platform excellent features. I would like to see the mac platform have a presence in Greece. Join the mailing list and communicate with other mac users in Greece.

8. In Athens, I saw a mac localized for the Greek language yet Apple does not sell a Greek version. What's the story here?

There is one major Apple distributor in Athens, Rainbow Computer. Contact details:

Rainbow Computer S.A.
Elia Eliou 75
Neos Kosmos
Athens, Greece 117 44
tel) +30-210-9012892
fax) +30-210-9012540

Rainbow Computer localizes the Mac OS to Greek for their customers. Rainbow's customers always have a Mac OS one or two versions back from the current version. The Greek version is only sold in Greece and is available through Rainbow Computer.

You can get the Greek system software from Apple but it only available from the "Apple Developer Mailing" from APDA. Designed for developers, you get a CD mailed to you monthly. The CD contains the most recent worldwide Mac system software along with a lot of other stuff. The Greek system software contains TrueType versions of GrCourier, GrHelvetica, GrTimes and several bitmap versions of some of Apple's other typefaces along with the Greek keyboard driver.

APDA Contact Info:

US)800-282-2732
Canada) 800-637-0029
716-871-6555

An important point: Just because you have the Greek system software does not mean you have to install the whole system; you can just take the Greek typefaces and the Greek keyboard driver and use them with your current system software. However, we advise that this be done by someone who has experience and knowledge with the Mac OS. Novices should not do this.

We are hearing more rumors regarding the presence of more Apple distributors in Athens and Thesseloniki. We believe that there will be more Apple dealers in Greece over the next few years.

9. In Athens, I bought software and the installation program is in Greek and no matter what I do I cannot get the Greek letters to appear properly so I can the read installation instructions. How do I fix that problem?

In this case, Greek language is embedded within an installation program. Your computer knows how to interpret the characters one of two ways, 1. the language of the operating system (ie. you have the Greek version of a windows operating system), and 2) you have windows 2000, Me, XP and you set the regional settings to Greek.

The first method is very straightforward. However, some comments should be made about the second method. When you set the regional settings to Greek, everything is set as if you were in Greece. As an example if you use Outlook, the month will appear in Greek, the "from" and "to" will be in Greek and Greek puncuation will be used for times. There are other examples. My recommendation would be to change the regional settings to Greek, reboot so the changes take effect, install the Greek software, and then change the settings back.

Technical Information