Trouble with Tribbles… and Greek Fonts
So, first, I love Star Trek. When I was thinking of a title for this post, I thought of “Trouble with Greek Fonts.” As I typed that title, it automatically came out as “Trouble with Tribbles,” so I left it.
For this post, do not think of “tribbles” as those balls of fur that multiplied faster than rabbits on board the USS Enterprise. Instead, think of “tribbles” as the weird, gibberish characters that you see if you look at any of my older posts that included Greek fonts. So, for this post, “tribbles” look something like this: á¼Ï€Î¿Ïεύθησαν
(If you don’t understand the Star Trek reference, and you want to know what I’m talking about, then you can check this article.)
Second… my site has been inundated with tribbles. Wanna see a slew of tribbles? Just look at this post or almost any of my posts in the “translation” category.
Apparently this happened during a database upgrade a few months ago. But, since it only affected the Greek fonts on my site and a few other special characters, I didn’t notice it until it was too late. (Yes, I always back up my database, but I did not want to restore a month or more worth of new posts to the backup.)
So, what should I do? Should I go back and fix all of the posts with Greek fonts? Some of them are the most popular posts on my site, but there are alot of them. I decided not to try to fix all of those Greek fonts. I’m going to leave the tribbles as they are.
Instead, I’m going to rewrite alot of those older posts. (Yes, there are some newer posts with Greek fonts too, and I’ll decide what to do with those later.) Many of those older posts need to be rewritten anyway. So, I’m not going to rewrite them word for word. Instead, I’m going to write new posts about the same subjects.
In the next few weeks, if you think you’re reading an older post, there are two ways you will be able to tell if the post is new or old: 1) Check the date, and 2) only the new posts have thumbnail images attached to them.
Meanwhile, if you like tribbles, you’re welcomed to occasionally stroll through the “translations” posts or other older posts with Greek fonts. I’m sure the tribbles would love the company.
Well, as they say, “it’s all Greek to me”. I couldn’t read them regardless. Tribbles on the other hand…
Hey Alan,
I’ve enjoyed reading your blog. What fonts were you using? At one point I was going to do some blogging and someone I know recommended using unicode. I don’t know if you’ve explored that at all but I have found it helpful.
Eric,
Yeah, tribbles are fun.
Noah,
I tend to copy the Greek text from other sites such as Type Greek. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do this time.
-Alan
Alan,
I don’t know if it would be helpful or if it is what you are looking for, but you can find information about unicode here:
http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/unicode.htm
You can get free unicode fonts, as well as NT texts here:
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/index.php?page=unicode
From what I understand, normal fonts try to trick your computer; it thinks you are typing an “a” but it comes out “alpha.” Unicode basically tells your computer to type “alpha” instead of trying to trick your computer.
Noah
Noah,
Thanks for the info! I’ll look into it.
-Alan
alan, I might be able to help you with this, gimme a couple days to remember 🙂 (FYI: I fixed all the unicode problems on oprah.com last year!)
Jon,
I look forward to hearing from you.
-Alan