Accordance Unicode export not playing nicely

[N.J.Erickson]

Version 13.3.0, Windows 10

 

I regularly use extensive sections of Greek text scattered throughout various Word documents. I prefer to use the Titivillus Ancient Greek spellchecker. I tell Word that the text is Ancient Greek, and it spell checks it, removing all the glaring red underlines that run throughout my document. When I can't do this, it makes spell-checking useless in Word because there are thousands of "misspelled" Greek words gumming everything up (like in my dissertation, with an estimated >5,000 spelling errors :-))

 

This process works for every source of Greek texts I have yet used...except those copied from Accordance. Whenever I paste text in from Accordance (using any of the paste methods Word has--I've literally tried them all over and over again), it treats the text as though accented characters all have an associated punctuation mark (best I can figure, at any rate). For example, the following image is a selection of Greek text pasted into Word from Accordance which has been spell-checked by the Titivillus Ancient Greek spell-checker (which is awesome and works great on Greek text I input myself or from any other source I have ever copied text from):

 

 

If you look closely, you can see a word like αὐτοῦ is spell-checked as though it is two words: "αὐ," which is misspelled, and "τοῦ" which is correct. The spelling recommendations from Titivillus also treat the word this way. Other instances of what gets treated as a "word" make no sense to me at all. The result looks like Greek texts from the pre-unicode days (with the exception that these are actual Greek unicode texts that print as such)

 

I have tried to paste Accordance text into Notepad++ as plain unicode text and then paste that into Word, but same issue. It is as if Accordance is exporting non-standard unicode Greek, even though in the settings its claims it exports in unicode. I've never had this problem with Greek from any other source, such as websites, Diogenus software, Logos, Greek .txt files, etc.

 

As one further test, I have tried pasting into Libre Office Writer (which also has an Ancient Greek spellchecker), with the same results there.

 

Is there some setting in Accordance that I don't know about? Or is there something actually afoot in Accordance's "unicode" which it exports? Or something entirely different?

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by N.J.Erickson

[mgvh]

I believe that Accordance Unicode is using composite characters rather than precomposed ones. In your examples with αὐτοῦ, the first upsilon with the smooth breathing can be created either with a precomposed character which in Unicode is character 1F50 or with a composite character using an upsilon (03C5) plus the smooth breathing mark (0313).

With composite character: α 03C5 0313 τοῦ
With precomposed character: α 1F50 του

So your spell checker sees that 0313 smooth breathing mark and thinks it's a punctuation of some kind.

When you type Greek in Word, it should be creating the precomposed characters.

 

Solutions?

• I am not aware of any program that can automatically convert composite to precomposed characters, but I suspect there might be one floating around on the web somewhere...
• Both the old BibleWorks and Logos use precomposed characters.
• Use an online Greek text, e.g., https://www.biblestudytools.com/sblg/ (I checked, and it uses precomposed characters.)
• In Accordance,
  • Edit > Preferences > Export > choose "Strip accents and breathing marks
  • Copy into Word and add the accents and breathing marks (doing so in Word does create precomposed characters)

 

BTW, to tell what the character is in Word, put the cursor after the letter in question and hit ALT-x. Hit ALT-x again to toggle it back.

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by mgvh

[Λύχνις Δαν]

There is an editor you can get for free that does convert between precomposed and composite which I've used - https://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelPad.html

 

Very handy tool - mind you if this is the issue it will be a bit of a pane to copy via this editor. I wonder if your wordprocessor could support a plugin to do the conversion. Of course then you'd have to find one. It would be nice if Acc supported doing either.

 

Thx

D

[N.J.Erickson]

Thanks. Accordance is indeed exporting composite unicode as opposed to precomposed. The Ancient Greek extension in Libre Office converts them. Maybe I can find something that will pull that off in Word.