Need help with German blackletter text fragment

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Here's a link to the poem in the Düsseldorfer Heineausgabe.

Just saw that the link doesn't work properly. So here's the text from there:

Wie entwickeln sich doch schnelle,
Aus der flüchtigsten Empfindung,
Leidenschaften ohne Grenzen
Und die zärtlichste Verbindung!

Täglich wächst zu dieser Dame
Meines Herzens tiefste Neigung,
Und daß ich in sie verliebt sey
Wird mir fast zur Ueberzeugung.

EDIT: Just saw that they also have a facsimile.

[Doitsu]

And here's the same version with a long s:

Wie enwickeln ſich doch ſchnelle,
Aus der flüchtigſten Empfindung,
Leidenſchaften ohne Grenzen
Und die zärtlichſte Verbindung!

Täglich wächſt zu dieſer Dame
Meines Herzens tiefſte Neigung,
Und daß ich in ſie verliebt ſey
Wird mir faſt zur Ueberzeugung.

@GrannyGrump: If you install UnifrakturMaguntia and use a program that supports selecting OpenType stylistic sets (for example, MS Word), you can generate an image that looks pretty much like the facsimile that doubleshuffle linked to, if you select the third stylistic set of UnifrakturMaguntia.

(In MS Office, select Font > Advanced > OpenType Features > Stylistic Sets: 3)

[Jellby]

The font has even a feature that can turn Ü into Ue, so you could write everything in "modern" German, and it would perfectly translated into the facsimile...

[GrannyGrump]

doubleshuffle said:

Just saw that they also have a facsimile

Most excellent, thank you! Even I can make out 95% of this one (but I am German-impaired, so not quite all )
My poor pdfs look so bad in comparison.

Doitsu said:

If you install UnifrakturMaguntia and use a program that supports selecting OpenType stylistic sets (for example, MS Word), you can generate an image that looks pretty much like the facsimile that doubleshuffle linked to, if you select the third stylistic set of UnifrakturMaguntia.

(In MS Office, select Font > Advanced > OpenType Features > Stylistic Sets: 3)

Thank you for that tip. This is going to be so much easier than I expected.

Thanks to you all for the very helpful input. I've learned a lot on this thread.



One further question --- when I lay out the svg images, if I style for a width, such as 100%, they scale really small on a small screen, and appear very much smaller than the normal text.

I am very tempted to style them for *height in ems* instead, to keep them scaled with the font-size. But then, with a large font-size and narrow window, they overflow the screen width.

Does anyone have opinions on which is the lesser of two evils?
Should I keep them sized within the screen width, with the possibilty of them appearing very much smaller than adjoining text?

Or, should I keep them sized to match the font-size, with the possibility of them becoming too large to fit the screen width?

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

Some of the languages used include Sanskrit, Assyrian, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Eskimo, several native American Indian languages, etc, etc, etc. (I'm having to use svg images for many of these...)

Really? I'm sure most of these are in Unicode, and it should be possible to find a font for them (and subset it). That would require a reader that supports font embedding, but to me that's a lesser evil than using an image (even SVG). I'd be happy to help transcribing these fragments, it seems fun

One further question --- when I lay out the svg images, if I style for a width, such as 100%, they scale really small on a small screen, and appear very much smaller than the normal text.

[...]

Or, should I keep them sized to match the font-size, with the possibility of them becoming too large to fit the screen width?

If you must use images, I'd try to scale them to match the font size, and then set "max-width: 100%", to make sure they don't overflow.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

Most excellent, thank you! Even I can make out 95% of this one (but I am German-impaired, so not quite all )
My poor pdfs look so bad in comparison.

This is FANTASTIC work you are doing GrannyGrump! Luckily, I have never ran into this dreaded "blackletter" stuff... I think I would be pulling my hair out!

Worst I had to do was dealing with all of this ancient greek with a bunch of accents.

If I was able to figure out most of the symbols, I would be able to do a google search of my part of the phrase, and run into someone else's digitized version of the complete phrase! It was extremely helpful, so perhaps you will do the same thing for someone in the future!

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

One further question --- when I lay out the svg images, if I style for a width, such as 100%, they scale really small on a small screen, and appear very much smaller than the normal text.

I am very tempted to style them for *height in ems* instead, to keep them scaled with the font-size. But then, with a large font-size and narrow window, they overflow the screen width.

We had a lot of this discussion in a thread talking about inserting the "Apple" symbol into an EPUB.

We discussed/showed examples of: font embedding, SVG (scaling in ems), and PNGs scaling as well:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=222825

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

Or, should I keep them sized to match the font-size, with the possibility of them becoming too large to fit the screen width?

Font-size, of course! But be warned if you go an image method (higher resolution PNGs), this method breaks in iBooks (BAH!).

You mentioned that you have many of these in symbols in SVG, may I ask where you got them from?

Originally Posted by Jellby

Really? I'm sure most of these are in Unicode, and it should be possible to find a font for them (and subset it). That would require a reader that supports font embedding, but to me that's a lesser evil than using an image (even SVG).

Yep yep. Font embedding would be the best because you can still search/copy/paste. With an image, it makes it harder to convert and/or make portable.

The way I would rank them is:

• Font embedding
• SVG
• PNG as an absolute last resort

Originally Posted by Jellby

I'd be happy to help transcribing these fragments, it seems fun

Is this what you use in your dating profile?

Jellby likes: Long walks on the beach, manually transcribing fragments of hard to digitize languages.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Is this what you use in your dating profile?

Jellby likes: Long walks on the beach, manually transcribing fragments of hard to digitize languages.

Sheesh, no! I can't stand long walks, much less on the beach

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Sheesh, no! I can't stand long walks, much less on the beach

Jellby likes: Long walks on the beach, Sitting in a computer chair, and manually transcribing fragments of hard to digitize languages.

Even better!

Also, if anyone is interested, this is where I posted some info on what I did for Ancient Greek (and others chipped in with other helpful sites/ideas):

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=213688

Also, don't forget to just mark these foreign language areas with their own classes, so that it will be easy as pie to spot where they are used in the book, so they can be easily found + manipulated via CSS.

For example, in my book, I marked all the greek words with <span class="greek">.

[GrannyGrump]

Jellby said:

set "max-width: 100%", to make sure they don't overflow.

Now, that makes perfect sense. And I'm always putting a max-width on my pngs and jpgs, and never even thought of that. Thank you for turning on the light.


Jellby said:

I'd be happy to help transcribing these fragments, it seems fun

If you really mean it, I will send you a PM with details. It would be a great help. I am struggling with some of these, because I'm having to find the (hopefully correct) glyph on a character map program, and copy-paste. I found a couple of fonts with very wide unicode coverage, Quivera and GNU FreeFont.

Tex2002ans said:

You mentioned that you have many of these in symbols in SVG, may I ask where you got them from?

Funny you should ask. I just posted a mini-tutorial about bitmap-tracing, which I had never done before. It is *so* easy.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=233131, if you find it useful.

Lots of good input in this thread.
Thank you all!

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

If you really mean it, I will send you a PM with details.

I do

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

I am struggling with some of these, because I'm having to find the (hopefully correct) glyph on a character map program, and copy-paste. I found a couple of fonts with very wide unicode coverage, Quivera and GNU FreeFont.

Follow the tip that I posted in that previous topic. I typically have Wikipedia and/or Fileformat.info open with my Firefox font set to GINORMOUS (so I can see all the little details).

Take a look at that puny Windows Character Map compared to Wikipedia:



(Plus Wikipedia typically has much better/more logical organization, like those accent tables make the Greek a thousand times more sense than just having them plopped around in unicode # order).

How to raise/lower font-size in Firefox: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...e-of-web-pages
How to raise/lower font-size in IE: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...ernet-explorer

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

Funny you should ask. I just posted a mini-tutorial about bitmap-tracing, which I had never done before. It is *so* easy.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=233131, if you find it useful

I read it right after you posted it (I was view #1). Already sent you karma right after I read it. We need more tutorials. (Which reminds me, I should get around to writing more of mine...)

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

Follow the tip that I posted in that previous topic. I typically have Wikipedia and/or Fileformat.info open with my Firefox font set to GINORMOUS (so I can see all the little details).

I usually use BabelMap (freeware), which has countless features that Windows Character Map lacks.

Spoiler:

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

I usually use BabelMap (freeware), which has countless features that Windows Character Map lacks.

Fantastic, thanks for the link. I will definitely use this over the default Windows Character Map. Being able to see which fonts on your computer have the given character seems like it would be EXTREMELY helpful.

Is there any way to make the program larger? I set it to View - Large Size, but it still only takes up a tiny portion of my screen real estate.

[GrannyGrump]

Ha. I use BabelMap also. Tex, I too wish that the app could be made larger. I am relying on the right-click to pop up a really large image. The pop-up size is configurable. I just wish the pop-up didn't disappear when I release the mouse button. I used to have an lovely old charmap-app on my defunct XP machine that displayed wonderfully big characters; I think it was a Win98 app but sadly, can't remember the name.

EDIT TO ADD: found it --unicode font viewer. http://www.soft-gems.net/index.php/all-downloads. Not nearly as many features as BabelMap. Hardly any features at all as a matter of fact, but the display is really large.

Tex, I checked your link about the greek thread, some good info and links in there. I hadn't thought of Wikipedia as a reference (my mind must be on vacation), so thanks for that tip.

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

The pop-up size is configurable. I just wish the pop-up didn't disappear when I release the mouse button.

I found that in the settings as well, and made it as huge as it can go... I just wish that every letter be "zoomed in" size, instead of a single character that you right click on.

(My monitor is 1920x1200). I only dread how this program would look on some of these even higher resolution monitors.

I still think the good ol' Wikipedia on huge font works for me... but this might be useful in other areas (as I said, seeing what font has what character seems extremely useful).

I feel like an old person... maybe I should take out a magnifying glass when on the computer or get two of those magnifying glasses that jewelers use and wear them like dual monocles.

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

Tex, I checked your link about the greek thread, some good info and links in there. I hadn't thought of Wikipedia as a reference (my mind must be on vacation), so thanks for that tip.

Also, last year I posted this (and I STILL have these tabs open and use nearly a year later!):

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

No problem. There are also very nice lists of characters with accents. I constantly keep tabs open in Firefox for the Wikipedia pages for Macron, Grave accent, Acute accent, Diaresis, Circumflex, Caron, Dagger.

I find it super easy just having the list of all the UPPER/lowercase versions of the letters right next to eachother.