Greek Fonts Primer

Date last modified: Wednesday, 09-Jul-2008 18:50:38 EEST (this document was originally created in June-1995, to allow people to read the first greek newspapers on the Internet Makedonia and Thessaloniki on-line).

Summary: This document provides a primer on greek language computing TODAY, in all computers reasonably current (ie Win98, MacOS 8.x, X11R6 or later) using the encodings iso-8859-7 / win-1253.

This document doesn't cover polytonic greek (used mostly by academics studying classic/ancient greek literature, e.g. Homer or Thucydides), if you're looking for that, please skip directly to info on polytonic (classic/ancient greek) fonts

We suggest options for email and Web-browser software apps (Win: Outlook, Netscape 4.x and 7.x - Mac: Safari and Mail.App) which work correctly with Greek, and configuration settings. Also updated the part about Greek under MSDOS, because many commercial applications (e.g. book-keeping) in Greece still run under DOS using IBM DOS codepage 737 (or in text-mode under Win). Mac users look at Greek for MacOS (Mac info is for modern, not ancient/classic greek).

Beware that some products/fonts offered for sale or for free (mostly for polytonic greek), implement Greek support in non-standard ways.

Windows users read this before downloading files from Internet: If you want to read/write/print MODERN greek (e.g. view greek Websites, send email in greek etc, which are ALL using monotonic iso-8859-7 standard), before you rush to download and install greek fonts from the Internet, take a few minutes to read the rest of this document.

Selected links about Greece: We have prepared a selection of interesting greek Websites about the city of Thessaloniki, the region of Macedonia and Greece in general.

Outdated sites: At all sites we've checked recently, the fonts / instructions offered for download and installation of modern (monotonic) greek fonts, are dated back to 1995-1998 time period, before Unicode fonts became part of modern operating systems (Win98 PanEuropean edition, Apple MacOS 8.x etc). Those old greek font files (usually arial.exe/.zip containing the TTF fonts by Pouliadis or Magenta, dated 1992) offered for download, don't support multiple encodings and the quality (on screen and in print) is poor by today's standards. These old font files should only be used with Win95, as the language support pack by Microsoft itself is no longer available.

But for Win98/Win98SE or later (NT4, WinME, Win2000, WinXP) your computer's fonts most probably ALREADY SUPPORT (monotonic) greek (and many other languages). So be careful that any fonts you download don't overwrite your system fonts.

• modern greek language - using a minimum number of accented characters ("monotonic system") used exclusively in the country since the early 1980's. All material currently published, in printed or electronic form, use this system. Covered by standard iso-8859-7 / win-1253 charset encodings, supported by all modern operating systems (Win, MacOS, Unix/X11 etc). Obsolete encodings for monotonic greek include cp-737 and cp-851 (used under MSDOS) and MacGreek (proprietary for Apple Macs).
• classic/ancient greek - using many different accented char combinations ("polytonic system") used in academia for classic greek literature in its original form (e.g. Homer's Iliad, or Thucydides), the greek orthodox church publications etc. In this case, skip the info below and jump directly to info on polytonic greek fonts. Windows 2000 / XP includes Unicode polytonic greek fonts, e.g. Linotype Palatino.

If you have an old installation of Win98, you should go to Windows Update and download the PanEuropean Language Support pack. Also read:

• How to Enable Support for Multiple Languages in Windows for Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Millennium Edition (Me)
• HOW TO: Add and Enable Additional Languages in Windows for Windows NT v4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Setting up Macintosh OS 9 Web Browsers for Multilingual and Unicode Support covers multi-lingual setup issues in MacOS 8.5 and later. Note that Macs have their own proprietary encoding for Greek (Greek [Mac]), a left-over from the late 1980s, but as explained in this document, all content today is available in iso-8859-7.
• Hellenic Mac User Group Unicode support discussing Mac OS X Unicode related issues (incl. which software applications work better for email/web-browsing in Greek)

Which standard Win TrueType fonts support greek: The TrueType fonts supplied with the Windows operating system since Win98SE, WinNT4 e.g.

• Arial
• Times New Roman
• Courier New

Application support required: Still, even though your computer may have greek fonts, the APPLICATION software program (e.g. MS Outlook) needs to support Greek (basically non-Latin character sets) as well. Some don't, or don't work very well.

• Windows:
  • EMail: use either MS Outlook Express/2000/2003 (all work fine) or NetscapeNavigator Mail 4.x [download] (Netscape Mail v4.x I think is a GREAT choice, if you don't like MS Outlook or don't want to worry about its security holes and if you don't need multiple accounts) or Netscape v7 or Mozilla Thunderbird.
  • Web-browsing: Use MS InternetExplorer (5, 5.5, 6), or Mozilla Firefox, or Netscape v7, or Opera, Safari. Netscape v4 is fine for email only, but isn't usable as a Web-browser anymore, because it doesn't support modern standards (e.g. CSS).
• Mac:
  • Email: use MacOS X 10.2.5 mail.app which supports greek correctly. Other good email clients are: Entourage X (included in MS Office X), Thunderbird (freeware), Eudora (freeware, adware, commercial $40 - with tables see below), GNU Mail.app (freeware), GyazMail (shareware $18).
  • Web-browsing: Safari, Firefox

How to configure the Web-browser

• MS Internet Explorer users: You need to go to InternetExplorer » Tools » Internet Options » General » Fonts, and specify a Web page font and Plain text font for Language script "Greek"
Also make sure that you have not setup your system to ignore the formatting options on Web pages, and only use your defaults (InternetExplorer » Tools » Internet Options » General » Accessibility)
• Netscape Navigator 4.x users: Go to NN4 » Edit » Preferences » Appearance » Fonts, and specify For the encoding: Greek the Variable / Fixed width font type and size

In order for a Web page to display Greek correctly in a browser the <HEAD> section of the HTML source code must contain the following tag:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-7">

or

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1253">

more information about this at W3C Internationalisation.

Writing greek: To WRITE greek as well, you need to go to your OS control panel and install a keyboard driver. (Windows » Start » Settings » Control Panel » Keyboard » Language » Add)

For professionals: If you are a graphics designer or typographer, looking for typefaces other than the ones supplied with the base operating systems, note that many high-quality typefaces for greek are in Adobe Postscript (Type 1) format (vs TrueType), as most professional graphics designers in Greece used Macs and Adobe technology. Beware that those fonts use the "Mac Greek" encoding, different from other encodings and so you won't be able to transfer text between applications on different platforms (e.g. QuarkXpress on Mac -> Win). Apple kept their own incompatible encoding for Greek despite greek customer complaints, a very bad decision. Every other OS switched to the official standard of iso-8859-7 after 1996.

The TrueType fonts by MonoType (Arial, Times New Roman etc) which are bundled by Microsoft with Windows are of very good quality, but many other TT fonts aren't suitable for pro work (no kerning, no hinting, not many weights etc). Look at Adobe, LinoType and Monotype for pro fonts.

Polytonic fonts (for ancient/classical greek): This document deals with modern greek issues only, for classic greek please visit

• Fonts for Scholars fonts and keyboard drivers
• Instructions for polytonic greek for XP/2000 and Apple
• Screenshot samples and links to polytonic greek unicode fonts
• GreekKeys Greek Font software from the American Philological Association
• ODP Classic greek fonts and software
• Greek font display help
• gateway to study of ancient greek
• Classical Greek Fonts and Utilities
• freely downloadable polytonic fonts
• utility for writing polytonic greek in Word
• Fonts for New Testament Greek
• Dr. Berlin's Foreign Font Archive
• Greek Font to Unicode Converter
• Greek polytonic fonts selection, with focus on academic theological studies
• Polytonic info tech support from On Line Library of the Church of Greece

Other useful resources/links about fonts to visit are:

• ISO 8859-7 vs. windows-1253 Diffs between ISO 8859-7 (Latin/Greek) and windows-1253 (CP 1253)
• Greek Unicode Issues covers "polytonic" greek (e.g. if you need to read ancient greek).
• A tutorial on character code issues explains concepts of character code and encoding in the Internet context (generic, not just for greek) - long
• Microsoft doc on character sets explains ASCII, OEM, ANSI, DBCS, and Unicode character sets (generic, not just for greek)
• DOS Greek 737 codepage table with all character mappings for codepage 737 (compare with DOS CP 437 for USA English the original DOS IBM PC character set, essentially ASCII with a few extra characters for drawing lines and boxes)
• Magenta Unicode Fonts several monotonic/polytonic greek typefaces for sale, by greek company Magenta

To correctly display the greek WWW pages on your screen, your system needs to support Greek according to the standard ISO 8859-7. If it doesn't, you need to install a suitable Greek "font". You also need to correctly configure your WWW-browser (Netscape, Mosaic etc).

We provide the software and instructions on how to do this on various platforms. Note that sofar our solutions enable you to view/print greek text (but not actually write Greek on all systems).

MS Windows 95

Newer versions of MacOS support iso-8859-7 greek in Unicode fonts, so you need to specify a Unicode font as default font for your browser and e-mail. Problems could only arise, if a web-page specifies a font-face / glyph (e.g. Arial, Times New Roman, Sans Serif etc) for which MacOS hasn't a Unicode font.

For more info / discussion of greek support under Mac, please visit:

• Hellenic Mac User Group Unicode support discussing Mac OS X Unicode related issues (incl. which software applications work better for email/web-browsing in Greek)
• Setting up Macintosh OS 9 Web Browsers for Multilingual and Unicode Support covers multi-lingual setup issues in MacOS 8.5 and later.
• MacOS X mail-clients which support greek how to send/read greek e-mail under MacOS and links/descriptions of different e-mail client software options

These solutions REQUIRE a VGA graphics adapter (Hercules etc not supported). All PCs after 1995 come with a VGA-compatible graphics card, so you should be fine. The greek screen fonts are loaded via software into the adapter (software screen fonts), vs changing the VGA ROM itself, as was the case in the early 1990s in Greece.

To PRINT greek under DOS (for applications like book-keeping, invoicing etc), you need to either get a replacement EPROM or (most likely) download printer software fonts.

TSR software loaded in DOS window (recommended): Get abcgrl.zip (4KBytes), run the TSR com file and follow instructions. It offers support for ISO 8859-7 (ELOT 928) and older, obsolete character sets (851, 437). Switch to ELOT 928 with Alt-3. Other options are IBM 851 (Alt-2) and IBM 437 (Alt-1). Note: Legacy software is written with IBM DOS CodePage 737 character set (Alt-1). Alt-1 means to CONCURRENTLY press the Alt-key and the "1"-key (not on the numeric keypad)

Method using tools provided by Microsoft: Another way, using the DOS-supplied programs for handling different codepages, uses a CPI file. Get dosgreek.zip (12 KB) a ZIP file which contains GAUSS.CPI and GRKEYB.COM. To add the Greek Font GAUSS.CPI under DOS 6.xx or DOS 7.0/Win95.

1) Add the following lines to your CONFIG.SYS file:

if you have DOS 7.0/Win95
	DEVICE=C:\WIN95\COMMAND\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,1)
	COUNTRY=xxx,737,C:\WIN95\COMMAND\COUNTRY.SYS

if you have DOS 6.22 or earlier
	DEVICE=C:\DOS\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,1)
	COUNTRY=xxx,737,C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS

where xxx is your country code.
	

2) Add the following lines to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

if you have DOS 7.0/Win95
	C:\WIN95\COMMAND\MODE CON CODEPAGE PREPARE=((437) C:\path\GAUSS.CPI)
	C:\WIN95\MODE CON CODEPAGE SELECT=437

if you have DOS 6.22 or earlier
	C:\DOS\MODE CON CODEPAGE PREPARE=((437) C:\path\GAUSS.CPI)
	C:\DOS\MODE CON CODEPAGE SELECT=437

where path is where is the GAUSS.CPI file.

3) Restart the computer.

To Add Greek DOS Keyboard driver add the following line to your
CONFIG.SYS file:

INSTALL=C:\path\GRKEYB.COM

where "path" is where is the GRKEYB.COM file.

The swap between the Greek and US Keyboard is with Ctrl-Alt-Space.

X11 Window System Release 5 or later

You can find an excellent description on installing Greek under X11 in [Greek in X11] Consult the manual of your system for details.