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Daveman Deluxe

macrumors 68000
Original poster
I need to find an International Phonetic Alphabet font to use with OSX (Tiger). I know that there are IPA symbols in the character palette, but it's hardly exhaustive. In fact, I can't even type proper French in IPA with it, since there's no character with a tilde over the œ. I've tried several IPA fonts but I can't get any of them to work properly. If somebody could either find an IPA font that I can use or help me through the process of getting them to work, I'd be much obliged.

For what it's worth, yes, I used Font Book to install them. No, they still don't work. TextEdit refuses to even display them, electing instead to switch to Lucidia Grande the instant I start typing. As for Word, it automatically substitutes other characters regardless of what it should be according to the font guide (i.e. option-a makes the å as in any other font, instead of the roman "a" that I need).

It seems so odd that such an important aspect of the written codification of language would be so sorely lacking, especially with the size the Internets have become. I'd even be willing to make my own font if anybody would be willing to show me how I can make a basic TrueType font.
 
Daveman, as far as I can tell, Lucida Grande has all the IPA symbols. Open it up in the character palette and take a look.

C'est simple comme bonjour!

/sɜ sɜ̃mplə kɔm bɔ̃ʒuʀ/

(Note that the tilde exists as a separate character, which can be added to any letter. Also note that this forum can't handle the encoding in my example properly.)
 
Well, if the tilde can be added to any character, I'd like to know how to do it because I sure can't figure it out.
 
Daveman, I think there's a bug involved, but I've found a way around it. There are two tildes in the character palette under "Combining Diacritical Marks" if you use the Unicode view.

For ɑ, ɔ, and ɜ, the tilde on the top row (called "combining tilde") works.

For œ, however, only the tilde on the eighth row ("combining Greek perispomeni") works. Weird, huh? It could be a bug in Lucida Grande, if the font has tables defining which diacritics may be used with which letters.

Maybe you could get someone to write an Applescript that automatically inserts the correct tilde over the preceding letter.

Note that I haven't tried any other characters in combination with the tilde. The only nasal phonemes I'm familiar with are the French ones. However, option-n seems to put a tilde on a and o.
 
A few more options if you have trouble with Lucida Grande:



UCL has some free IPA fonts http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/fonts.htm but they're mapped to a regular keyboard and not to the Unicode IPA block.

University of Toronto has some free fonts http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~rogers/fonts.html which might be Unicode. They include instructions with the font.

There are also high-quality serif and sans-serif IPA fonts in the ITC Stone family. You can get the package for $22 bucks, which seems like a bargain to me. I believe it also includes instructions on how to type the various characters. http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/detail.htm?pid=202362
 
IPA fonts in excel and package

CaptainHaddock I have a question regarding the IPA fonts...I tried using Lucida Grande on Excel but it doesn't seem to type out the symbols I want to use, i.e. the schwa what do I have to do? Also, if I buy the package you suggested from the following site http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/detail.htm?pid=202362 would I be able to automatically install the fonts on the Mac OS X version? Please let me know. Thank you.
 
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