Vowel Chart Maker Help

Vowel Chart Maker produces a vowel-chart bitmap from a script. A script is a short text-file saying which vowels are to go on the chart and in which positions; a bitmap is a computer-handlable picture which you can paste into documents and generally shunt around.

Vowel Chart Maker is a licensed product. An unlicensed copy limits you to three vowels per chart, but will still show you all the things that Vowel Chart Maker can do. Licensing information is at www.rational-language-learning.co.uk/vowel-chart-maker.htm.

Scripts

Scripts are in two halves, separated by a divider. The first half sets the options that define the general appearance of the chart (the font to be used, the size of the symbols and so on), while the second half contains the vowel specifiers. The divider that separates the two halves is an exclamation mark on its own line. Here is an example of a script:

    FontName=Lucida Sans Unicode
    FontStyle=B
    SizeCode=3
    Stubs=No
    Sampa=Yes
    Box=4
    !
    1     1     u   'i'
    2.1   1.2   R   50
    3.5   2.7   r   'Q'+85  1.5  2.3
    3.8   2.2   u   'QU'  1.5  2.1

You don't need to write new scripts - you can always use an old one, and modify it with the internal editor that is built into Vowel Chart Maker (click 'Edit' on the main screen). Alternatively you can use a text editor such as Notepad or Word, in which case you must save your script in Ansi or Ascii format (your text editor will tell you how to do this).

Options

There are six options, and you can preset them all from within Vowel Chart Maker (click 'Options' on the main screen). You can also set them in the script, in which case the script settings will override the preset settings, just for that chart. The example above shows all six options, but in practice you only need to enter on the script the ones to be changed. If a script contains no options, it must still start with the exclamation mark.

Options in the script can appear in any order. They must be specified in upper and lower case exactly as shown below. The chosen setting must follow the equals sign immediately, with no spaces between (but there can be spaces in the font name).

FontName=Times New Roman

Specifies the phonetic font. Spell the name exactly as it's spelt in your Windows Fonts folder, and don't put quotes round it. If you spell it wrong, Windows will substitute a different font without telling you.

FontStyle=X

X produces no enhancement, I produces italic, B produces bold. There is no way of setting 'bold + italic', but specifying an inherently bold font will probably work.

SizeCode=2

Specifies the size of the symbols in the range 1 to 7, 1 being the smallest. Increasing or decreasing the symbol-size will also automatically enlarge or reduce the grid.

Stubs=Yes

Yes prints the labels 'Front...Back...Close...' round the edges of the chart. No suppresses them.

Sampa=Yes

Yes translates Sampa keyboard characters in your script into IPA symbols. The Sampa keyboard characters that are translated are the digits 1...9, the characters " % & { } ~ : = ? @, and the capital letters A...Z. No turns Sampa translation off.

Box=3

Must be in the range 1...9. Defines the size of the grid in terms of the number of characters that are to fit into one box, using the stated symbol-size. A smaller number makes the grid smaller in proportion to the symbols, so the chart will be more crowded; a larger number makes it less crowded.

Divider

The options are separated from the vowel lines by an exclamation mark alone on its line. Every script must have this, even if it contains no options.

Vowel Lines

Vowel lines contain either four or six fields, separated by spaces (you can have as many or as few spaces as you like).

Field 1

Vertical position (1=close, 4=open). You can use a single digit, or a digit with one decimal (see example above), giving 9 possible intermediate positions. The first vowel in the example script above is at the fully close position; the last is half-way between open-mid and open.

Field 2

Horizontal position (1=front, 3=back), like vertical position. The first vowel above is fully front, the second is less than fully front and the third is just front of central.

Field 3

u or U or r or R, meaning 'unrounded' or 'rounded'. (Capital letters are equally valid here.) 'u' puts the symbol to the left of its blob, 'r' to the right. (The true phonetic quality of the vowel is not examined.) This is the only control you have over the placement of the symbol.

Field 4

The symbol, or 'symbol-string' if there is more than one symbol for the vowel. You can identify the symbol by a typed character or by its character number in decimal - it makes no difference which you use. Typed characters must be in single quotes. You can mix modes within the same symbol-string, separating the elements with +. There must be no spaces within the symbol-string.

The first vowel above uses a typed character (letter i within quotes). The second uses a numeric specifier, 50, which is the character number for the digit 2. (This is just for demonstration purposes - you'd probably want to type '2' in practice.) The third vowel-line illustrates the use of mixed modes (typed and numeric) within the one symbol-string. The fourth vowel-line shows the same symbol-string as typed characters in quotes (which is the option you'll probably use most).

Diacritics must follow their symbol.

If you can't use Sampa for a particular symbol, and can't type it, and don't know its character-number, you can look it up in Character Map on your computer. However, you will have to convert Character Map's hexadecimal notation into decimal notation. You can also find character-numbers on the web. For non-Unicode fonts, use the font documentation.

Fields 5 and 6

These are used for diphthongs, and are the co-ordinates (vertical then horizontal) of the arrow-head that shows the diphthong's destination.

Validation, Comment Lines

Vowel Chart Maker marks invalid lines in the script with a leading asterisk, and then ignores them. It doesn't give you an error message.

If you want to keep a comment in the script, type it in on its own line and let it get marked as invalid. If you want to temporarily remove a option to see what difference it was making, type a letter in front of it to make it invalid.

Fonts

You can use Vowel Chart Maker with Unicode and non-Unicode fonts alike. In non-Unicode fonts, a given phonetic symbol will have a different code in different fonts: this means that when you change fonts, you will have to change all the symbol-specifiers in your script to match. In Unicode, a given symbol has the same code in all fonts (the reason for developing Unicode was to get out of the pre-Unicode mess). All modern computers recognise Unicode.

When using a non-Unicode font, turn Sampa off. If you don't turn Sampa off, Vowel Chart Maker will translate all your Sampa keyboard characters into Unicode character-codes, which will be wrong for the non-Unicode font. For a trouble-free non-Unicode life, use the free IPA-samm fonts from the University of London Phonetics website (but still turn Sampa off).

Centering Diacritics

Centering diacritics don't always print well, even in Unicode fonts. To counteract this, Vowel Chart Maker includes special routines that force them to behave properly when the font is DejaVu Sans Mono. With other fonts, you get what you get.

These routines deal with all the centering diacritics shown on the IPA chart except for the upper tie bar and the 'velarized or pharyngealized' swung dash. The diacritics are demonstrated in the four scripts Diacrit1/2/3/4.vch and their associated bitmaps, supplied with the package. (You will need a licence to activate all the lines on these scripts.) If you report any other problem with DejaVu Sans Mono, I will try to fix it.

Install, Uninstall, Change Computers

Installing Vowel Chart Maker delivers the following files to your computer: vchart.exe, vchhelp.htm, sample.vch (the sample script shown under 'Getting Started'), the four diacrit?.vch and .bmp files demonstrating the centering diacritics, the font DejaVu Sans Mono and its associated licence in fontlic.txt, a shortcut to Vowel Chart Maker and one to Vowel Chart Maker Help. The two shortcuts are delivered to your desktop, and the font to your Windows Fonts folder. The remaining files are delivered to the folder c:\vchart. When running, Vowel Chart Maker also creates and maintains c:\vchart\vchart.ini.

You can move any of these files to any folder of your choice, with the exception of c:\vchart\vchart.ini, which must remain in situ. If you destroy this file, Vowel Chart Maker will re-create it with preset values, and you will have to enter your Options and Licence Code again. If you move the executable or the help-file to another folder, you will need to change any shortcuts to match.

To uninstall Vowel Chart Maker, delete the files noted above. Vowel Chart Maker makes no other changes to your computer.

You can move Vowel Chart Maker to a different computer by downloading it again from the internet and re-entering your Licence Code. If alternatively you move it by hand, the minimum you need is vchart.exe and c:\vchart\vchart.ini.