UnicodeIt

• This is a project by Kyle Cranmer and me.
• To use it: highlight some text and use the shortcut to replace latex with unicode characters
• Examples: p̅, x̲, ẋ, ∂̸, H → γγ, ℋ, ℒ, x ∈ ℝ, y ∈ ℂ, β, γ, ∑, →, ←, μ⁺, e⁻
• Tested with Mac OS X Lion and Snow Leopard 10.6.4 in Keynote, Safari, Mail, Pages, TextEdit; also tested on facebook.com, gmail.com, MediaWiki, TWiki using Safari

Introductory Slides (pdf) and a list of all latex expressions and their unicode replacements (pdf).
For programmers, here is the Python source code: unicodeIt06py.zip

It's Free

The program is free and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do. If you feel like buying us beer or coffee, please do:

Installation on Mac OS Lion

• Download the workflow and open it
• Select File > Duplicate
• Save the duplicated workflow, e.g. as "UnicodeIt Copy"
• Setup keyboard shortcut under System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services > Text > UnicodeIt Copy by clicking into the empty space behind it (e.g. Command+Option+Shift U)
• There is a delay first time you use the shortcut

Installation on Mac OS Snow Leopard

• Add the workflow to: /Users/<username>/Library/Services/UnicodeIt.workflow (create the Services folder if it is not there already)
• Setup keyboard shortcut under System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services > Text > UnicodeIt by clicking into the empty space behind it (e.g. Command+Option+Shift U)
• There is a delay first time you use the shortcut

Links

• For a more thorough discussion of LaTeX, HTML and Unicode tools and ideas: http://www.nongnu.org/elyxer/ and http://pages.uoregon.edu/noeckel/Keynote.html#caveats
• Linux wrapper for UnicodeIt: http://code.google.com/p/unicodeitlinux/

Changelog

• New in 0.6:
  • improved sub- and superscripts
  • some new symbols including: square root √, cube root ∛, fourth root ∜
• New in 0.5:
  • added combining marks: for example \bar{p} p̅, \underline{x} x̲, \dot{x} ẋ, \slash{\partial} ∂̸
• New in 0.4:
  • \rightarrow now has the alias \to
  • added mathbb and mathcal symbols including the symbols used for Hamiltonian and Lagrangian densities ℋ, ℒ and for real and complex numbers ℝ, ℂ (for all symbols see the UnicodeItSymbols.pdf file)

FAQ

• The native Mac applications work fine, but web browsers do not necessarily support the Mac's System Services:
  • Safari and Chrome seem to be working fine.
  • Firefox does not work with UnicodeIt: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Feature_Brainstorming:Platform_Integration#Services_Integration_in_OS_X