It is required an Unicode Font supporting phonetic characters, as "Arial Unicode MS" or "Lucida Sans Unicode" and that font must be selected in the menu Instruments > Phonetic Font. Some Unicode Fonts, as "MS Mincho" or "Tahoma", support only partially the phonetics characters used.
It may also be used one of the Unicode Font of the SIL ("Charis SIL", "Doulos SIL" o "Gentium") freely distributed under the "SIL Open Font License", downloadable from the site  http://scripts.sil.org/IPAhome (in particular we suggest to use the "Charis SIL" font). The program may not use the old "SILDoulos IPA93" font, a non Unicode font whose use is discouraged by the SIL.

You can choose one of the several virtual keyboards supplied in the menus and use it with the mouse. The keyboard font is selected in the menu Instruments > Configuration > Keyboard font. If you want to write or modify phonetic texts you should select the same Unicode font selected in the menu Instruments > Phonetic font.

To get a phonetic transcription, type the text, select with the mouse the text to be transcribed (if there is no selection the program transcribes all the text in the window), choose the language (Italian or Japanese) in the combo box in the bar and click on the menu "Transcription".

To transcribe a text without deleting the origin select the text, click on the menu Edit > Copy, click where you want to insert the transcribed text and click on the menu Edit > Paste Transcription.

Warning: the transcribed text loses the format and get the format selected in the menu Instruments > Phonetic Font.

For Italian stressed, open and close vowels, for voiced and unvoiced "z", see the file "Italiano.txt", "Italiano 2.txt" e "Italiano 3.txt".
For examples in Japanese open the file "Giapponese.txt".

For a better transcription see the options in the menu Instruments > Options.

You may save the transcribed text on a rtf file (in the menu File > Save Rtf file), readable and modifiable also with Word or other word processors.

To copy the phonetic transcription on Word or other word processors:
1 - select with the mouse a text transcribed, or the whole transcribed text;
2 - click on the menu Edit > Copy (or type CTRL-C);
3 - paste the text on Word;
4 - select with the mouse the text pasted on Word and choose the same font selected in the menu Instruments > Phonetic Font (or Basic Font).

To copy on Word or other word processors a text not yet transcribed:
1 - select the text;
2 - click on the menu Edit > Copy Transcription;
3 - paste the text on Word;
4 - select the pasted text and choose the same font selected in the menu Instruments > Phonetic Font (or Basic Font).


To transcribe a text from a file of Word or other word processors:
1 - copy the text form Word;
2 - click on the menu Edit > Paste Transcription of this program;

The programs "Phonetics" and "Keyboard" may be downloaded from http://www.webalice.it/sandro.carnevali - http://web.tiscali.it/san_car - http://www.geocities.com/san_car - http://home.tele2.it/sancar.
