PainShop Pro 9 - Using Special Characters

Author

Using Special Characters

Samantha

2006-08-03, 7:53 pm

Last night I was trying to use PSP9 to follow a tutorial written for PSP5
creating a "carved in stone" image. The tutorial called for a special
character to be put into the text tool dialog box by using the alt key and
typing 0130 on the number pad. I could never get anything to appear in the
text tool dialog box in PSP 9. I did have the font loaded in the text tool
dialog box. I tried without success to find something in the help files, and
it was too late (nearing bedtime) to get the manual out. I've been thinking
about it this morning, and decided to ask the experts if this is no longer
possible - all the while realizing that I probably am not providing enough
information. :-) I know I can just use another character that will only
require using the regular keys, but I wondered why this doesn't work.

Tim

2006-08-03, 7:53 pm

Samantha wrote:
> Last night I was trying to use PSP9 to follow a tutorial written for
> PSP5 creating a "carved in stone" image. The tutorial called for a
> special character to be put into the text tool dialog box by using
> the alt key and typing 0130 on the number pad. I could never get
> anything to appear in the text tool dialog box in PSP 9. I did have
> the font loaded in the text tool dialog box. I tried without success
> to find something in the help files, and it was too late (nearing
> bedtime) to get the manual out. I've been thinking about it this
> morning, and decided to ask the experts if this is no longer possible
> - all the while realizing that I probably am not providing enough
> information. :-) I know I can just use another character that will
> only require using the regular keys, but I wondered why this doesn't
> work.

Make sure that you have Num Lock on, and that you hold down the Alt key,
type 0130 and only then release the Alt key. Are you using some special
symbols font? Are you using exactly the same font as the tutorial? Some
fonts won't have anything in that position and in standard text fonts
it's only a comma.

--
Tim Morrison
C-Tech volunteer

Fred Hiltz

2006-08-03, 7:53 pm

Samantha wrote:
> ... The tutorial called for a special character to be put into the
> text tool dialog box by using the alt key and typing 0130 on the
> number pad. I could never get anything to appear in the text tool
> dialog box in PSP 9...

Like Tim, I find that this usually works well. I seem to recall a
case where the character did not look right in the dialog box but
was correct in the image, but this may have been a different PSP
version.

Does the Windows Character Map utility show the correct glyph for
that code when you select the font? You could try copying from there
into PSP as an alternate to typing the number code.

If you care to reveal what tutorial and what step, we can try it and
compare notes.
--
Fred Hiltz, fhiltz at yahoo dot com

Spandex Rutabaga

2006-08-03, 7:53 pm

Samantha wrote:
>
> Last night I was trying to use PSP9 to follow a tutorial written for PSP5
> creating a "carved in stone" image. The tutorial called for a special
> character to be put into the text tool dialog box by using the alt key and
> typing 0130 on the number pad. I could never get anything to appear in the
> text tool dialog box in PSP 9.

Press the NumLock key on your numeric keypad and (if there is one)
check that the keyboard light is on to show you are in numeric
mode. Have the PSP Text Entry dialog open. Click in it with your
mouse. Press and hold Alt. Type 0130 on the numeric keypad.
Release Alt. Now a character will appear in your Text Entry dialog.
At least is does for me in PSP 9.

The easy way of doing all this is the following. In Windows do
Start > Run, type charmap and press Enter. Choose the font and
character (and character set) you want. Highlight the character.
Press Select then Copy. Click in the PSP Text Entry dialog and
press Ctrl-V to paste the character. After pasting you may have
to delete an extraneous Enter after the character you pasted.

Samantha

2006-08-03, 7:53 pm

The tutorial is here: http://www.caroluk.co.uk/psptut4/ and I'm using the
same font - Davy's Dingbats - and the owl face shows in Windows Character
Map with the same code, alt+0130. However, I can paste it into Wordpad (I'm
at work using their stuff) using the character map and Edit>Paste
Special>unformatted text. I cannot get it into Wordpad using the alt key. I
didn't try pasting from the character map last night. I'll try it again
using all your suggestions when I get home this afternoon.

"Fred Hiltz" <not@home.ca> wrote in message news:44d20b8a_1@cnews...

> Like Tim, I find that this usually works well. I seem to recall a
> case where the character did not look right in the dialog box but
> was correct in the image, but this may have been a different PSP
> version.
>
> Does the Windows Character Map utility show the correct glyph for
> that code when you select the font? You could try copying from there
> into PSP as an alternate to typing the number code.
>
> If you care to reveal what tutorial and what step, we can try it and
> compare notes.

Samantha

2006-08-04, 10:53 pm

Today this procedure works like you all said it would. I made sure that I
held the alt key down while typing the number and maybe that's what I wasn't
doing before. Thanks for all your suggestions. This is a great group of
people, and I have learned a lot here.

"Samantha" <samantha@noreply.com> wrote in message
news:44d20365$1_2@cnews...
>
> Last night I was trying to use PSP9 to follow a tutorial written for PSP5
> creating a "carved in stone" image. The tutorial called for a special
> character to be put into the text tool dialog box by using the alt key and
> typing 0130 on the number pad. I could never get anything to appear in the
> text tool dialog box in PSP 9. I did have the font loaded in the text tool
> dialog box. I tried without success to find something in the help files,
> and it was too late (nearing bedtime) to get the manual out. I've been
> thinking about it this morning, and decided to ask the experts if this is
> no longer possible - all the while realizing that I probably am not
> providing enough information. :-) I know I can just use another character
> that will only require using the regular keys, but I wondered why this
> doesn't work.
>
>