AT THIS PAGE you can find several installation packages for a Gothic keyboard layout for Windows in different languages. By using such a keyboard layout the Gothic letters from the younger, higher Unicode areas are selected by pressing a key instead of the Latin ones from the older and lower area. As described below, in Windows’ control panel can be determined which keyboard layout is to be used.
Installing a Gothic keyboard layout is not necessary if you only wish to use the Latin area of my fonts Ulfilas, Silubr or Skeirs (which I’ve also layed out with Gothic characters especially for this purpose), or if Pfeffer Mediæval is to be used in a programme that supports OpenType features and thus can easily replace the Latin letters by Gothic ones using stylistic set “ss03”. But in both cases the text’s being Gothic is merely due to a particular feature of the font in use or to a particular text layout. The letters are so to speak Latin characters that are ‘masked’ as Gothic ones and that will lose their mask as soon as you assign a different font to your text or copy it into another programme. This can be avoided by choosing the ‘proper’ Gothic characters from the Gothic Unicode area using my keyboard layouts.
Their keys are mapped as follows:
▪ Generally, the Gothic letters are located at the respective place of their latin equivalents.
▪ “Þiuþ” is located at the C key, “Hvair” at the V key.
▪ Differing from one language to another*, the combining diaeresis is located at the respective key for acute/grave/caret/diaeresis. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+I creates an “Ï” as a single glyph.
▪ Ctrl+. creates a mid-dot (“·”) for the Gothic numeral notation.
▪ Likewise differing from one language to another*, the Gothic characters for “ninety” and “nine hundred” are mapped to some keys not needed for Gothic.
▪ When using one of the fonts provided at this site, the majuscules from the private use area are reached by holding shift. This applies for “ninety”, “nine hundred” and the combining diaeresis as well.
In order to install the keyboard layout, unpack the downloaded file to a directory of your choice, start “setup.exe” and follow the instructions. Afterwards, it is recommended to set up a shortcut for an easy change of keyboard layout between Latin and Gothic. In Windows XP this is done by opening the “Regional and Language Options” from the control panel, then clicking at the “languages” tab, thereupon at the “details” button and threreafter at “keyboard”. Here a shortcut can be chosen. Proven have been Shift+Alt or Shift+Alt+Num Block-0, for example.
Those who miss their own language in the list below (or who still like to modify their keyboard layout) can additionally download the source files needed by Microsoft’s Keyboard Layout Creator.
ROEL of roel.tengudev.org offers a Gothic keyboard layout for Linux, see below as well.
| File | Description |
| gocki_(polski).zip | Gothic keyboard layout based on the Polish one. |
| gothic_(english).zip | Gothic keyboard layout based on the English one. |
| gotico_(español).zip | Gothic keyboard layout based on the Spanish one. |
| gotico_(italiano).zip | Gothic keyboard layout based on the Italian one. |
| gotique_(français).zip | Gothic keyboard layout based on the French one. |
| gotisch_(deutsch).zip | Gothic keyboard layout based on the German one. |
| gotisch_(nederlands).zip | Gothic keyboard layout based on the Dutch one. |
| gotiska_(svenska).zip | Gothic keyboard layout based on the Swedish one. |
Source files for all languages for MS Keyboard Layout Creator. |
|
| got.txt | ROEL’s Gothic keyboard layout for Linux. |
* It wasn’t easy to store all characters—above all “ninety” and “nine hundred” as well as the diacritics—in every language. Therefore I’d like to save myself the effort of giving a detailed description. Those who like to know it exactly may download the source files und Microsoft’s Keyboard Layout Creator and look it up there.
