Switch to secondary font

[tedg]

This is not working for me.

My requirement is that I use a font that does not have Hiragana, and from time to time I need them. I have a Hiragana font installed. My expectation is that I should be able to set the Hiragana font as the 'secondary font' in settings.

The behaviour I am seeing is that in settings, appearance there is a 'Secondary Font' button. I can click it and get the system font pane. I can select any font in this pane, but I am unable to have it be selected.

[phspaelti]

Hi Ted,
I just tried this, and this is what it looks like for me:

Secondary Font.jpg (190.62 KiB) Viewed 1960 times

As far as I can tell it works. If I have some Japanese in my English text it uses the Secondary Font selected to display the Japanese.

But to be honest, that is not the way I would want to handle it. In order to add Japanese to my English text I create a character style and I attach the Japanese font to that character style. When I want some Japanese I just switch to that character style. The character style also has the Japanese language attached and that in turn switches the input method. Is there some reason you don't want to do it that way?

[credneb]

If I understand correctly, you are writing an English (or other Western) language document using, e.g., Courier, and now and then you need to type and display ひらがな hiragana.

I don't know anything about 'alternate fonts', but to get Japanese (hiragana, katakana, kanji) in a document, you only need to have Japanese enabled as a Preferred language in the Language and Region system settings panel. When you want to input hiragana, simply change the Language setting in the system pull-down menu to Japanese:Hiragana, and type away. ひらがな will display correctly in Courier, etc. I toggle between Japanese and English by hitting cmd-space bar. If you want the J to be in a particular font, that can be done globally when you're done, or by some simple macros.

I use the following called by cmd-JJ to switch to Japanese. A similar one goes back to English.

# SetJapaneseFont
Format:Language:Japanese
Format:Font:All Fonts:ヒラギノ明朝 ProN

[img][attachment=0]Screen Shot 2023-04-24 at 11.47.17.png[/attachment][/img]

Cliff

[adryan]

G'day, all

I also use Cliff's method for switching languages. By the way, it can be used for more than two languages (as can Philip's method). You need to be aware that this will probably change the keyboard layout, which may have other consequences. For example, Y and Z keys are interchanged on changing from an English-language keyboard to a German one, which means that Undo becomes "Cmd-Y” with the latter.

My cursory examination of the literature (ie, the Nisus Writer User Guide) suggests that the Secondary Font feature is something that kicks in when characters are not available in the primary font you are using. Moreover, the precise mechanism underlying this is somewhat technical and consequently shrouded in mystery. So I would regard it more as a backstop and prefer instead to make a deliberate choice which offers me more control — such as the methods advanced by Cliff and Philip.

Cheers,
Adrian

[tedg]

I am baffled about why I cannot set that secondary font preference like Cliff can.

But I am quite happy to use the character style technique.

Thanks all.

[credneb]

Bottom line, whatever method works for you, works.

The method I presented has nothing to do with Nisus specifically. It is an Apple System preference panel, and works globally (insofar as your globe is the Apple OS). You can switch languages (fonts and input method) in any application by the same method. (One downside is that Google Maps converts English street names to katakana, for which there should be a solution within Google, but I have not found it.)

I liked styled sheets back in Word 5.1, but never got into them in Nisus because of one, non-Nisus, problem. It assumes that when the file goes to a Word user, the Word user knows how to use styles. My experience has been that most corporate users of Word don't -- which created more work for them and me. And im/exporting style sheets upon style sheets upon style sheets is a key to chaos.

Glad you found a solution that works.

Cliff

[martin]

I am baffled about why I cannot set that secondary font preference like Cliff can.

But I am quite happy to use the character style technique.

Character styles are a good option. But I'd like to try to clarify your problem if possible. Maybe we can still help you solve it.

When you say you "cannot set that secondary font" it sounds like you can't edit the setting in the first place. You haven't even reached the concern of whether or not it works correctly for your document text. If that's correct, let's walk through how you're changing the setting. The process should go something like this:

1. Open Nisus Writer's language preference pane and choose the desired language, e.g. Japanese.
2. Look for the "Secondary Font" setting and click the "No Secondary Font" button.
→ Apple's system font panel appears
3. Select a font in the system font panel, e.g. in the "All Fonts" collection, click the font family Hiragino Mincho ProN.
→ The secondary font setting in Nisus Writer's preference should update to match the font you selected.
4. Close the system font panel.

Is that what you're doing? If so, what exactly goes wrong? What happens when you choose a font in step 3?

[tedg]

It previously failed at Step 3, but now works.

Thanks.