UNICODE DIACRITIC TOOL

This tool is enabled/disabled by an option on the Record Display page of the main options.

Unlike the standard diacritic tool in MARC Report (which displays a list of brief captions describing each diacritic), the unicode diacritic tool displays the actual diacritic characters themselves in a compact 8 x 10 grid.

FILE

By default, this tool displays the characters for the same Latin diacritics that are present in the standard diacritic list. However, a main goal of the unicode diacritic tool is to support user customization (as UTF-8 makes many tens of thousands of characters accessible to the cataloger). This customization is realized by building your own file (or files) of diacritics.

For complete details on how to set up a file of diacritics, visit the following page on the MARC Report wiki: http://www.marcofquality.com/wiki/mrt/doku.php?id=help:customizing_diacritics

The unicode diacritic tool includes a File option which allows you to switch between different diacritics files on the fly. Of course, its best to have all of your frequently used diacritics in the same file, but when that's not possible, or feasible, this option provides a way to grab a diacritic from a different file–without reconfiguring your options.

TEST

If you have not setup a custom diacritics file but want to test the capability, try these steps. Select 'File|Open', then look for a file named 'diacritics-common-western' and select it. This will load a file of the most commonly-used diacritics in Western scripts. There are about four pages of characters, which you can scroll through using the arrows at the bottom of the grid.

Click on a diacritic character to reveal its label and code point (in the panels at the bottom of the form). Clcik on 'Options' and select 'Show label as hint'; then move your mouse over the diacritics to reveal the label or name of each one

OPTIONS

There are two ways to display the caption for a diacritic. First, clicking on a diacritic character will display the caption or label for that character in a text box at the bottom of the form. Note that clicking on a character also shows the UTF-8 code point in hex of the diacritic that is being selected.

In addition, there is an option (under the Options menu) named 'Show label as hint', which, if selected, will display the label for each diacritic as you move the mouse of the characters in the grid.

Another option allows you to change the order in which a file of diacritics is presented, by sorting them on:

1. the character label
2. the MARC-8 code point (probably not relevant for the unicode tool)
3. the UTF8 code point
4. the UTF-16 code point

Finally, there is an option to not sort the diacritics at all, which is useful if you have carefully arranged the order of a custom diacritic file.

FONT

On the menu of the diacritic tool there is also an option to launch a Change Font dialog.