Dear Juan,

A few points:

* There may well be a few odd people using obsolete browsers who
cannot view Unicode; but you should not pander to them, because:

* There are many visually-impaired users who, contrary to your
assertion of 100% readability below, cannot currently read the images
of your Greek text, because they cannot magnify it without
pixellation. Unicode does not have this problem. You should
*absolutely* move to Unicode.

* Most modern browsers, unlike many word processors, will not mix and
match fonts with quite the same wild abandon that rightly annoys you
(and me) so much. There are other ways to encourage this, however.
You can suggest a font in the HTML code and then suggest that your
readers install this font (make sure it is a free one). That is one
way to attempt to ensure that your readers have the same experience as
you. Another is to use pre-composed glyphs (ask your local Unicode
guru how to ensure this).

With best wishes,

Peter

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Juan Coderch <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I would like to move my web site www.akwn.net to another web. The problem I
> have with mine is that it's a web site that somebody built for me around
> 10-11 years ago, piece by piece, button by button, etc., using Dreamweaver,
> but it does not accept Unicode. And being it so simple nowadays to build a
> web site with providers like for instance Weebly or Wordpress, where the web
> site template is already done and you just have to make some modifications
> (and Greek Unicode works in it, I have already checked it), it does not make
> much sense to go on posting Greek texts as gif images: readers can not copy
> and paste them, etc.
>
> During the last years I have been receiving requests from readers to use
> Unicode and put real text instead of images, but to make that old web site
> accept Greek Unicode it seems that some complicated HTLM steps had to be
> followed, something out of my reach, and moreover I have not been aware of
> the availability of these already half-done web site providers like Weebly,
> Wordpress, etc. until quite recently.
>
> In any case, one of my fears was that if I post an image, yes, it's not the
> same as a text, but 100% of readers can see the text-image, but not all
> computers could read Unicode Greek when I started receiving these requests.
> Then, the question is: would you say that, at the present moment, any
> standard computer that opens a web site with Greek Unicode in it will
> visualize the Greek text correctly? I take for granted that there will be
> the odd computer that will not recognise Unicode Greek, but, apart from
> punctual cases, would you say that the matter of Unicode is widespread and
> normalised enough to take for granted that any standard computer will be
> able to visualize it correctly?
>
> Also, another problem I have seen with Unicode is that, when I open a Greek
> text sent to me by anybody else, no matter whichever Unicode Greek font
> he/she has used (New Athena, Lucida Grande, etc.), I visualize it in any
> font my computer chooses automatically but compound characters (vowels with
> accents or breathings or both) are automatically turned into another font,
> and the final result (two fonts in the same text) looks really ugly unless I
> select all and maually make all be the same font. So, whatever Unicode font
> I will use for the new web site, there is the risk that the readers will see
> most text in one font and compound characters in another font. How can this
> be avoided?
>
> Thanks for any answer.
>
> Juan C.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. J. Coderch
> Senior Language Tutor in Greek and Latin
> The University of St. Andrews
>
> School of Classics
> Swallowgate
> St. Andrews
> Fife KY16 9AL
>
> Room C27, Tel. + 44 (0)1334 462611
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> Grammar site: http://coderch-greek-latin-grammar.weebly.com
>
>
>
>