Keyboard viewer and font choice

Hello...
I seem to remember pre 10.5 being able to choose different fonts to display in the keyboard viewer. With 10.5 that ability seems to have disappeared. Is there a way to bring it back? This is important to me because, e.g. different versions of unicode Hebrew font will be more or less accurate in portraying the characters on the keyboard viewer.
Thanks.

Tom Gewecke wrote:
Keyboard Viewer is pretty much useless without the ability to select the font.
It certainly isn't useless for me. Could you explain why you think that in more detail? Do you often need to use fonts with non-standard mappings?
Sure... and I frequently use Keyboard viewer to easily find, view and/or insert characters from a specific font. Particularly for glyphs, dingbats, ornaments, etc.
Here's an example:
I'm working in Fireworks.
I have a font called "Type Embellishments One"
I know there is a flower but have no clue which key.
Pre-Leopard:
Open Keyboard Viewer choose "Type Embellishments One" from the drop-down
Toggle modifier keys to find glyph.
Click picture of flower on the keyboard (which happens to be shift-y)
Character is inserted.
Leopard:
Open Keyboard Viewer
See that there is no way to choose "Type Embellishments One" from the drop-down =/
Open Character Palette
View: Glyphs > Click Glyph Catalog tab
Choose "Type Embellishments One" from font drop-down
Scroll through list til I find the flower I'm looking for and double-click it.
Get error: "Couldn't set application font" (which is already set, btw)
Try dragging and dropping from char palette to Fireworks text editor
Question mark gets input, not shift-y.
Character Palette doesn't show which key invokes Unicode F059, so I end up just going back to Fireworks and hitting every key until I find the glyph I'm looking for.
In Tiger, (and +*every other version of Mac OS since KeyCaps was introduced*+ ) you used to be able to just pop open keyboard viewer, choose any active font from the drop-down, hold your modifier keys to find the character you want, and click the key with your mouse to insert the character. Simple. Elegant. Exactly what KeyCaps was designed for.
Leopard removed this functionality. I don't understand why.

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My keyboard on macbook pro (laptop) is acting weird. One key is not responding at all. Have verified using Keyboard viewer and some other keys are printing the unresponsive character at random.

my keyboard on macbook pro (laptop) is acting weird. One key is not responding at all. Have verified using Keyboard viewer and some other keys are printing the unresponsive character at random. "z" is the unresponsive character.
Is it a damaged keyboard ?
The laptop is just 2 months old, will Apple replace it with a new one if its indeed a damaged keyboard or just repair, I use it for official purposes so being without a laptop is not much of an option.

No one here works for Apple, so we don't know what Apple might or might not do. If it's a genuine defect, they will of course repair it under warranty. It is not their responsibility if it effects your ability to work or not, so that's on you.
If, however, they determine that the key is problematic as a result of your misuse of the laptop, then everything is on you. And trust me, if they find a glob of dried up beer or coffee there, they will charge you.
Your only choice is to take it in for repair.

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Hello:
Try resetting the PRAM.
Barry

Keyboard Viewer window opens up after waking from sleep and screensaver

I have the MacBook keyboard freezing problem since upgrading to Leopard. One time (at band camp), I opened the Keyboard viewer so I could enter some text prior to rebooting. Now, the keyboard viewer pops up after every wake from sleep, return from screensaver (both password protected), and sporadically when switching/quitting applications.
I have tried rechecking and unchecking the "keyboard viewer" and "show input menu in menu bar" in System Preferences->International->Input Menu. While not a serious problem, it is rather annoying. How do I get the keyboard viewer to stop opening?
On a related note, there must be a script or program that is run every time the computer wakes from sleep and password protected screensaver that prompts for a password. Anyone know where this is located?
Peter

Ok, I just tried that. I deleted com.apple.KeyboardViewerServer.plist. I then started my screensaver. When I came back in...the Keyboard Viewer was back and there was a new plist file that was created...so, something else must be controlling it.

Keyboard viewer causing lock ups

Keyboard viewer is causing me some headaches. I have a handicapped user who can better use a mouse than a keyboard, and needs to use keyboard viewer. However, after enabling keyboard viewer, if they user logs out of the computer, and logs in again later he gets constant pinwheels. The keyboard viewer does not show up, but if I look at the international menu it gives me the "hide keyboard viewer" option.
If I open up a terminal and run top, I see that every time I click on something, move a window, or interact with anything the kernal_task jumps from 1% cpu to 8% for 15-30 seconds, and beachballs. Then kernal_task will drop back down to normal levels and the system begins responding again until something else is done.
If I go to the international menu and hide the keyboard viewer before logging out, and then log back in, I am able to turn it on and use it just fine. The problem only occurs when keyboard viewer is left showing, and the user logs out. So there is a work around, but sometimes he'll forget to hide it and logs out, causing problems next time he logs in.
This only occurs when using mobile accounts. If set up a local account on the computer, it isn't a problem. If I remove the computer/account from all management and synchronization it still happens. It will occur on any computer the user logs into if they enable keyboard viewer.
Any thoughts?

Thanks for that BDAqua,
I will take a look at that software. I am little reluctant to go third party in that I am a student and can't dictate which Apple mac I am using at my college. They frown on installing third party software. So I am really looking for a solution that is already on the OSX. I tried sticky keys but I can't seem to make it work on the Keyboard Viewer. (I am also surprised that the caps lock does not work normally on Keyboard viewer). I can't believe I am the only one that has only mouse input of text!
So my question remains, will modifier keys be operable with a single click on Keyboard Viewer, and will a macro key be operable /definable for specifically modifier keys in keyboard viewer?
TIA

Keyboard Viewer+ Character Palette = madness

I am going crazy!!
I turned on the keyboard viewer and the character palette.
Then I closed their windows. I turned them off in System Preferences.
They return every time I wake from sleep or screensaver.
I tried to delete all kinds of preferences. (Any that would change when I enabled
these two windows I would trash.) No good so far.
Advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
charlie

Update: I was using "Require password when waking from sleep..."
I stopped using that. No more character palette.
I re-enabled the password thing.
The character palette from H*ll returns.
Weird how it is coupled to the password thing.
Next I am trying logging out, restart etc.
charlie

Spaces Keyboard viewer in every space

I use the keyboard viewer frequently to enter short text strings (I have a disability that makes using the keyboard uncomfortable) and I use Spaces. Previously I could add Keyboardviewer to "every space" in 10.6 I can not find out how to do that. I know where the app is /System/Library/Input Methods/Keyboardviewer . When I navigate there to add it nothing shows. How can I configure Spaces so Keyboardviewer is displayed in every space?

Michael, I think I know what you did wrong. I added keyboard viewer to every space and then went back to write up step by step instructions and it was suddenly gone!! I had not followed the exact path. Input methods exist in several places but they are empty except in the exact path you specified.
Macintosh HD/System/Library/Input Methods/Keyboardviewer
Anyway the step by step is below, which you probably already know but here it is:
You can navigate there from System Preferences - Expose & Spaces - Spaces Tab. Now hit the "+" sign below Application Assignments. In the drop down box select "other".
Make sure to start at the Mac HD level as you click through /system/library/input etc.
Select the Keyboard viewer and then "every space".

Can't change font in Keyboard Viewer.

Previous versions of Keyboard Viewer had a drop-down to select the font. It was perfect for finding things in Wingdings, Webdings and Symbol font. You could learn the keys for your favorite symbols.
The new Keyboard Viewer is missing this option. What am I supposed to do?
Thanks.

There are many fonts which use the normal keys on a US keyboard for symbols of one kind or another.
Bodoni Ornaments ITC TT. and Type Embellishments One LET are two installed by OSX10.6 and/or iWork'09 which do and both also use the option key and option shift to change the symbol typed.
Yes, understood. The logic of the technology, however, is that all such fonts should be converted to Unicode as well, so that the user is not typing the bytes intended by international standards to represent the Latin letter A but instead expecting a dingbat to always appear in the text. I guess within Apple things are not totally coordinated in this area:-)
Perhaps someone will create an alternative keyboard viewer to meet these needs. Have you looked at
http://www.corallosoftware.com/

Font Selection in Keyboard Viewer

In previous versions of the OS the Keyboard Viewer let me choose what font I wanted to view. Now all I see are "Standard" and a few odd fonts. Am I missing some preference setting that will allow me to view ANY font? I have, for instance, Koch Signs which I can't view at all any more.

Tom Gewecke wrote:
for most special characters you must use the Character Palette and not the keyboard for input. The Favorites section of that is designed to provide easier access to special characters that are frequently used. Or a custom keyboard layout can sometimes easily be created to include characters you need all the time.
If you tell us exactly which ones you need, we can probably tell you whether and how a keyboard combo can be used.
In my workflow, the special characters I need to use generally do have a keyboard combination to activate them -- my frustration is over the seemingly increasing hassle it requires to see what that key combination is. And the difficulty with setting "Favorites" is that there aren't really any specific ones I frequently need on a regular basis.
Here's a typical example: I was recently using the Hoefler Text font to generate captions and special titles for some montages I was creating in Photoshop. Hoefler has an "Ornaments" style, which had some decorative glyphs I wanted to use to bookend some of the text entries. Using Font Book (with Preview set to Repertoire) I could easily see all the available glyphs in that Ornaments style, at whatever size I wanted to view them.
So far so good. And each of these characters had its own keyboard combination. The trouble is, Font Book (unless I'm missing something) won't tell me what that keyboard combination is for any given character. And Keyboard Viewer now won't let me select the font and at least see to which keys (and with which modifiers) all of the characters for that font have been mapped. (In fact, Keyboard Viewer should automatically open with whatever font you're currently using already selected.)
So I end up having to run my finger along every key in every row, and then do the same with Shift, Option, and Shift-Option held down, just to figure out which key combo generates the little left-facing squiggly thing in this particular font.
With Character Palette (which I've re-discovered thanks to this and other threads), I can at least use the Insert option to pop a selected character into whatever file I was working on -- but how do I first try out a special "string" of these characters to see how they'll look together? I seem to recall the old Key Caps utility would let you do that.
I guess my main point is that all of these kinds of functions and options need to be integrated into Font Book in an easy-to-use way.
PS The best place to tell Apple how you feel about this issue is here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
Believe me, I have. For many, many apps. Many, many times.
I sometimes wonder how seriously the Feedback is actually monitored, however, since very often the options offered in the questions you need to fill out (what version of the app are you currently using; which version of the OS; etc.) are several months out of date. One can only hope that even though the pages themselves are not being actively maintained, at least some of the user input sent via those pages does get looked at.
(And while Apple would never say this publicly, IMHO if they're smart they've also got a staff of people whose only job is to monitor the Apple Discussions Forums, and track what's working and what's causing frustrations in the OS, its hardware, and all of the apps.)
In any case, thanks Tom for the reply and the offer of assistance.
John Bertram
Toronto

Font menu in Mountain Lion´s Keyboard Viewer?

I lost track of the font menu in Mountain Lion´s Keyboard Viewer. Where did the font menu go?

Hi,
Do you mean this ?
That's the Character Viewer turned on in System Preferences > Language and Text > Input source tab.
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Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mountain Lion 10.8.2)
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 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
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"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

I want to see different font layouts in keyboard viewer

Up until Mac OS 10.4.x it was possible to look for different keyboard layouts in different fonts. This was very handy if you wanted to know, which key combination to press for a certain Zapf Dingbats character.
This feature was already limited with 10.5.x and has disappeared with 10.6.x
I want to have this feature back!
Or How Do You Manage to key in characters from fonts like Zapf Dingbats or Wingdings???
Thanks for any help

Hi Tom!
This is a huge step in the right direction! Thanks!
But it doesn't tell me which keyboard keys represent e.g. the aircraft or a black scissors.
With keyboard viewer I knew , what to keys to hold and what to type. In our case all of our users knew the had to press Shift - 9 (on German keyboard layout) to get the airplane. Now, with 10.6 a new ZapfDingbats , Shift-9 isn't working anymore and no way to see which keys to press.
This slows down the creation process.
So , i stick with my demand for the keyboard viewer as it was in 10.4.x -- although I love to have it as big as it can be in 10.6.x
Thanks again
Holger

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My keyboard went nuts...I got on my MacBook today after not using it for about 24 hours, and the fonts all changed to like Greek. No matter where I am at (web browser, word document, etc). I even went into settings and fonts, and it says it is using Arial or some other standard "Apple" font, but the keys continue to write in Greek.
It gets worse-I logged out thinking I just needed to reboot...but now I cannot get back in because it's still not writing correctly. What's even weired (and I have no idea if this is related or not) but my Capslock Key and my Delete key have like switched roles...ALSO, when I press down the "A" key (as there is an "A" in my password) the keyboard writes it 3 times...even though I only hit it once. SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE. I am a full-time student and need my computer for homework.
I'm locked out AND if I do get in, the font it still messed up as well as the Delete and Capslock keys...

It sounds to me like your keyboard has been damaged and needs to be repaired or replaced. Can you try an external keyboard?

Fonts in Indesign CS3 View and Save But Will Not Print

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Hi Guys - here are the answers to your questions...
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Keyboard viewer and font choice

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