NLS Other Writings

Say How?

Issued July 2001

Notes on Using this Guide

Browsers are the software that allow one to view documents on one's computer. They use a standard set of characters that include some, but not all, diacritics. In particular, the character set used by browsers does not include the horizontal bar over vowels that represent the long vowel sound. The character set does not include, either, the shwa symbol. To make this list useful when loaded into a browser, the long bar over the top of vowels has been replaced with the acute diacritic sign; the shwa has been replaced by the small eth, an Icelandic alphabet character.

You may want to increase the size of the font displayed on the screen, to be able to read the diacritics more easily. If you do not know how to increase the font size, the "Help" menu item on the menu bar of the browser (usually the second bar down, after the blue bar at the top) may have some answers.

In recent versions of Netscape Navigator, holding down the control key <ctrl> while pressing the square bracket keys [ ] will decrease (<ctrl>[) the font size or increase (<ctrl>]) the size of the displayed font.

In recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, click on "view" on the menu bar and choose "font size", selecting the relative size next higher in the list than the current size. Current size will be noted with a bullet or some other marker.

Two popular browsers, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, allow one to use the control key <ctrl> in conjuction with the f key to open a search box for finding things on a web page. You may want to use this facility for quickly finding a name.

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Posted on 2006-02-24