CLO GAELACH (FREEWARE!)
(To print this document, at the DOS prompt type COPY README.TXT PRN)
The Irish language has its own rules of pronunciation. The five vowels, and
nine of the 13 consonants used, can have their sound modified by the addition
of a lenghtening stroke in the case of the vowels, and by the addition of an
overhead dot or a subsquent letter "h" in the case of nine consonants, as
in GAELACH of title above.
These files provide a TrueType font for Microsoft Windows 3.1 to enable
printing of Irish language documents using the "lenition" or aspiration
as a dot over these nine consonants, as an alternative to using the letter "h"
as has become more common since the introduction of the Linotype machine this
century. The font is as easy to use as any TrueType font in Windows 3.1.
The font can also, of course, be used with the "h" - all the normal characters
of the alphabet as used in the English language are provided as usual.
To make easy your access to the characters with the modifying dot, as also to
the vowels with an overhead stroke to signify lengthening, a set of macros
called GAEILGE.REC is provided for use under Windows Recorder. Instead of
having to consult a table of numbers, you can produce the characters by using
the Ctrl, Alt and Shift keys with the appropriate letter key.
Ctrl+Alt+letterkey produces lower case characters with dot or stroke.
These used with the Shift key as normal produce the upper case characters.
The font is not copyright. It is in the Public Domain, so you should
receive it free of charge, except perhaps for the cost of disk, and postage
and administration if any. Distribution and development are encouraged,
as are comments and suggestions to the author!
This README.TXT document cannot show the characters because it must be
accessible to users before installation.
Fuller information is in the file GAEILGE1.WRI which can be read and printed
under the Windows Write program. There is also a sample sheet of the font:
GSAMPLE.WRI. If you view or print either of these before installing
the Font, there will be strange characters where there should be the
the special characters of the font. However, GAEILGE.WRI as a whole can
be read sufficiently well to understand.
To view GAELIGE.WRI complete with the new font, you need to install the font
first. You can do this quite simply by doing this:
1 Start Windows, and have "Program Manager" on screen - you'll see
that written on top. You may have two or three "groups" or windows
on screen, each containing one or more small pictures called
"icons", each with a word or two underneath.
2 With your mouse, bring the mouse pointer to the icon called
"Control Panel", and give two quick clicks with the left mouse-
button. In a few moments, a new window will open up with the name
"Control Panel", and with a number of icons.
3 Double-click again, this time on the icon with the title "Fonts".
This will lead to another box without icons, but with some areas
showing information.
4 Click on the button named "Add": this will lead to a box for adding
a new font to your system. Within this, there's a box called "Drives"
with a down arrow on the right hand side.
5 Click on that arrow, and it will show a list of the disk-drives you
have on your computer. The drive you want is the one containing the
disk with the font-files. If you have just one floppy drive, it will
be drive A:. If you have two, it could be A: or B:.
6 Click on the drive containing the disk. When you do this, a box on the
left should show the name of the font "GAEILGE 1 NORMAL".
7 Double-click on the font name, and it will bring you back to the
previous "Fonts" box; with the list of other fonts already installed,
it should show the new font-name "Gaeilge 1 Normal" highlighted. In
the box under that, there should be a sample of a few letters of the
font displayed. Close that box now, and you will be returned to
Program Manager.
8 If you have an icon on view with the name "Write", double-click on
that, and it will open the "Write" Word-Processor that comes with
Windows; it will show a blank screen. On top is a list of menu-names,
starting with File.
9 Double-click on the word File, and a menu will be displayed; click on
the second item called "Open" to say that you want to open a file.
This will show a box containing a number of areas, one of which is
called "Drives", like at step 4 above. Click on the arrow and again
select the drive containing the floppy disk with the font files.
10 This time the area on the left should list files on the floppy disk.
Among these should be GAEILGE1.WRI, GSAMPLE.WRI and RECORDER.WRI. To
see any of these on screen, double-click the name. GAEILGE1.WRI gives
full information on the font. GSAMPLE.WRI has two pages of samples of
the characters in the font. RECORDER.WRI is a document you may wish to
consult if you want to use the Windows utility "Recorder"; however, you
don't need it at the moment for using the font. Documents already
composed, like GAEILGE1.WRI, will use the font automatically. When you
want to compose a document using the font, there's a file on the floppy
disk called GAEILGE.REC, which you can install (see below), and this
will give you easy access to all the special characters. Full about
is in the document GAEILGE1.WRI, on page 5.
11 While viewing GAEILGE.WRI or either of the others, you can print it:
Have your printer powered up, with paper. Open the File menu over the
document you're viewing. This time choose "Print". It will give you a
choice of how many pages of the document to print, and how many copies
you want. Continue with printing.
You can use the GO.BAT utility which accompanies the font files to copy the
relevant font files to your C: disk. This will create a new GAEILGE
subdirectory in your C:\WINDOWS directory, and will copy the necessary and
the useful files to that directory; you can install the font and the Macro
from Windows Program Manager. (If you do not have a C:\WINDOWS directory, it
will notify you that you need to install manually according to how your
system is set up.) To use this utility, log on to the drive where you have
inserted the diskette, type GO, and press the Enter key; follow the
information on screen.
If you want to install the font manually, here is a suggestion
for installation of the font and of the macro set. It presumes a basic
familiarity with Microsoft Windows 3.1.
1 Put the disk with the files in your disk drive.
2 Copy the file GAEILGE.REC to you WINDOWS directory. (If Windows
is installed in a directory of a different name, use that.) From DOS,
type COPY A:\GAEILGE.REC C:\WINDOWS.
If your floppy drive is not A:, substitute the appropriate letter.
You can also do it, of course, from File Manager.
3 Start Windows. From Program Manager, open Control Panel/Fonts, as
with the previous set of instructions, above. Follow these through.
4 Start Recorder from Program Manager. Open the File menu, and select
GAEILGE.REC from the C:\WINDOWS\GAEILGE subdirectory if it has been
copied to there; or from the C:\WINDOWS directory if it is there.
Then minimise Recorder: click the down arrow in the top right of the
Recorder window.
5 Go to Windows Write as above, and view or print the documents
GAEILGE.WRI, GSAMPLE.WRI, and RECORDER.WRI.
The document GAEILGE.WRI gives directions for setting up an icon for the macro,
and for automating it fully if you wish to do so. It also gives directions for
fully removing the font and the macro set if you wish to do so. The document
RECORDER.WRI gives fuller procedures for setting up or changing the set of
macros contained in GAEILGE.REC.
GSAMPLE.WRI contains samples of the font.
RECORDER.WRI has information about using the Recorder utility.
Composing a document in Windows Write, you will need to select the font
Gaeilge 1 Normal by opening the Character menu and selecting Fonts...
The largest size listed is 72. However, in the box which shows the selected
size, you can enter 127 - this is the largest available in Windows Write.
Check your own Word Processor to see what sizes you can get.
All comments, suggestions, and further developments will be welcome!
Padraig McCarthy
Chaplain's House
Cherry Orchard Hospital
Dublin 10, Ireland.
Telephone: National: (01) 626 4702
International: +353 1 626 4702
E-mail: padrgmcc@iol.ie
October 1994.