Virus Scan for PopChar Win

MK Nice interface.
But Windows' Character Map (Start... Accessories... System Tools under Windows 7 - and select 'Advanced view' ) can do the same, pastes into Word in the font selected (under PopChar I had to highlight its pasted character in Word and set the font) and is FREE (no offence, but even at 50% discount at $21.37 it seems a wee bit overpriced).

Sep 3 2011 at 1:26am Copy Link

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Genie au Travail Quick Key is doing the same for free.

http://nathanaeljones.com.../quickkey/

As MK, PopChar is overpriced (EU customers must add VAT) even if it's a very nice software.

Sep 3 2011 at 5:19am Copy Link

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CP I think we will all share MKs view :).

Sep 4 2011 at 10:08am Copy Link

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SoftCollector I agree that the price is somewhat steep. That said, please, keep in mind that this program has not been primarily developed to be used with Microsoft Office - as noted above Office does this for free.

But with notepad, all the various dictionaries for languages with special characters (French, Russian, etc.) it can be very useful, unless you would like to keep Word open at all times.

I am a translator with several languages and it is sometimes a pain in the back to look up a word in a computer dictionary with several languages installed.

Sep 6 2011 at 1:33am Copy Link

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Avi S Hey guys,
This program really is useful!! I just installed the trial version to check it out, and I found that this program does have some real advantages over both Character Map and Quick Key.
The main advantage for power users regards the keyboard-search-interface. PopChar contains an incremental-search box which allows us to instantly locate characters by typing partial strings that match the unicode names of the characters.
I cannot understate how important this feature is. I work with multiple languages, and with all sorts of diacritics and special characters, and I spend lots of time searching through unicode charts to find the specific characters I am looking for. The incremental search here allows very quick and efficient access to the *entire* unicode map! There's no need to isolate specific character ranges first - if you want arabic characters, just type "arabic"; to narrow it down to those 20-odd characters that include a hamza, just add "hamza" to the search tab, and you're in business!
Or, say you're looking for an interrobang, but don't know how to spell it: just type "interr", and there it is.
In contrast, quickkey doesn't include the full unicode names of most of the characters at all. And Windows Character Map, although it does have a search box in the Advanced view, it does not provide for incremental searches, but rather just supports individual searches executed with the "enter" key - far less effective when one is trying to narrow down a specific character. (Also, Windows Character Map doesn't allow one to change the font size, which means that small diacritics can be very difficult to discern at high resolutions; in contrast, PopChar can provide nice big glphys for perusal. Also, PopChar displays the results organized by unicode block, unlike CharacterMap).
All in all, for those who need to quickly find specific characters from across the entire unicode map, PopChar is ideal and well worth the money.
That said, there are some things that I would really like to see added/improved, and before purchasing I'd like to hear from the developers as to whether these features can be added in a release in the near future:
1] I don't see any way to access special unicode character such as the "zero width non joiner" or the "right to left mark". Although these unicode chars don't have corresponding glyphs, they are very important for users of multiple languages, and I was hoping that PopChar would provide a easy way to access them. I believe that these should be added to the character list in PopChar.
2] When searching for a unicode character, I often don't know beforehand within which font it will be contained. Thus, I'd like to have a mode in PopChar where the incremental search will search across *all* unicode chars - not just those within the current font - and then, if the current font does not contain the glyph, the resulting glyph-box can display an "X" of some sort. This way I will know that my search was on target, just that the glyph doesn't exist (as opposed to not knowing if my searched matched any character at all). I agree that this should not be the default mode - by default it makes sense to limit the display to glyphs that are present - but I very much feel a need to have this as an option.
3] The font-choosing interface can be made much more convenient, as follows:
-- The default font list has a set of about 10 fonts, and it seems to be hard coded. However, as I work, I tend to bounce back and forth primarily between a set of about half a dozen fonts, none of which is in the list. Each time I switch between them in popchar, I have to choose all over again from the global list of fonts. It would make much more sense for the basic popchar "font list" to contain the 10 most recently used fonts, or, perhaps better, to provide an option for the user to choose the set of fonts to be included in the default font list.
-- To choose a new font from the global font list, one must click on the current font, go down to the bottom of the menu, click "show
font list", then navigate with the mouse over to that list. This is cumbersome, and there is no way to do so via the keyboard. I'd like to be able to do this whole process via the keyboard, including opening the global font list, navigating the list, and choosing the font, with an incremental search box to allow narrowing down the list before navigating it with the arrow keys.
-- After opening the global font list and choosing a font, the natural thing to do is to close that extra window with "ESC". But instead, "ESC" minimizes the whole application; and to close that extra window, one must instead click on the "hide" button at the bottom. This is awkward. As I've noted above, this program is perfect for those who need quick keyboard-based access to their character set. But for such users, it is important that the font-selection-interface also be easily navigable via the keyboard.
4] Similarly, and just as important: the program is lacking when it comes to keyboard navigation in the main window. There needs to be a keyboard-based interface to allow one to: (a) move back and forth between the incremental search box and the list of glyphs (why doesn't "tab" work?). (b) to navigate through the list of glyphs. (c) to copy the selected character to the clipboard. (d) to change the font size (bigger/smaller). (e) and finally, I'd like to see a super-quick way to search for a single character and copy it to the clipboard. For instance, when I search for "interr" I get only one character - the interrobang - and in such a case I'd like to just hit one key, say F4, to copy the one resulting character to the clipboard. Or perhaps F4 should always just copy the first character in the chart to the clipboard.
5] Finally - and this a minor issue - I find that when I click to paste a character into MS Word, it doesn't place it where my keyboard cursor is, but rather where my mouse happens to be on the screen. This is almost certainly not the intended behavior, but it's not a major issue for me.
Overall, great program, and I do hope to purchase it, pending a hopeful response from Ergonis regarding these issues.

Sep 6 2011 at 4:14am Copy Link

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Genie au Travail @Avi S

Ouuuuah, nice review !

Sep 6 2011 at 7:00am Copy Link

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Max Murkel @ Avi S: Bravo....

Admittedly PopChar isn't a cheap utility. However one may want to consider, that cou can opt for a 5-PC Family License at € 22 (+VAT for EEC customers) once you've chosen the version for your OS.

Fair enough IMHO.

Sep 6 2011 at 7:26am Copy Link

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VLM I agree, brilliant review, Avi, thank you!

Sep 6 2011 at 8:07am Copy Link

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Roger Thomasson @ Avi

Impressively done!

@ Genie

What exactly does 'Ouuuuah' mean? I like it :-)

-r

BitsDuJour Admin - Sep 6 2011 at 10:18am Copy Link

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Genie au Travail Ouuuuah = impressive in french (not a real word but an expression).

Sep 6 2011 at 11:43am Copy Link

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Roger Thomasson I'd guessed it was something along those lines ;-)

BitsDuJour Admin - Sep 6 2011 at 12:05pm Copy Link

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Avi S Hi Everyone,
I've used the program a bit more, and now I've read the help file as well. It turns out that the program has some great features that I missed before. I feel an update is in order:
a] Regarding issues (1) and (2) - it turns out that PopChar's "all" mode that does exactly this! It displays all unicode characters, regardless of whether the glyph is present. In this mode, there is a nice distinction made via color: a blue glyph indicates a unicode character that is not present in the current font, while black indicates a char that does exist. Even better - and this is a really cool feature that I've needed for a long time - a right click option on any character can instruct PopChar to search across all installed fonts to determine which fonts do in fact include the given character. Qualifying fonts are then marked with a special symbol in the global font list, and a filter option allows displaying a list of only those fonts which contain the character. Well done, popchar!!
The "all" mode also displays those special non-graphic characters that I mentioned, like the "zero width non joiner". Unfortunately, these characters are all displayed in one row as a block of white space, so they are not so easy to work with - I would much prefer that there be some sort of box with an "X" in it - but at least they are there and accessible.
(b) Regarding the font-choosing interface - I still find much to be desired in this interface, as I noted, and additionally I've found, annoyingly, that that the global font list cannot be displayed at all while working in full-screen mode. (I believe that it's natural to use the program in full-screen mode, to maximize the number of characters one can see on the screen - so there really should be a way to have the font list displayed in this mode, perhaps as a modeless dialog).
However, it turns out that there *is* a mechanism whereby popchar adds the most recent fonts to its internal menu. The reason I didn't see this - and why I felt the list was hard coded - is that fonts are only added to the list if a character from the font is double-clicked upon (to automatically add them to the top-most window). Yet, I don't think I'll ever be doing that - I much prefer to first copy my characters to the clipboard (with the relevant right-click option). However, when doing so, the font doesn't register as a "recent font" for the font list.
My suggestion to popchar is that any font that is selected from the global font list should be added to the recent font list, whether or not characters are actually double-clicked upon or copied to the clipboard.
(c) One more relatively small feature that I think is very important to add to the program: it should be possible to enlarge the font used to display the unicode names of the characters at the bottom of the screen. Access to these unicode names is critical; yet, on my wide screen monitor these characters are tiny. So, I'd like to suggest that the font used for their display be enlargeable, just as the size of the glyphs is enlargeable.

Sep 6 2011 at 12:26pm Copy Link

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Eddie Tex Yup, it's not cheap but I agree with Avi S, this is the best tool I've seen with foreign language handling. I have to deal with both Biblical Greek and Hebrew in addition to working occasionally with Thai. Neither the Windows Character Map nor QuickKey can compare.

Household license purchased.

Sep 6 2011 at 10:53pm Copy Link

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K X I'm sorry to have missed this deal. I got home late from work, didn't have a chance to try the demo, and reading the discussion made the program sound like it was only for specialists.

Now that I've used the trial (and read a lot of the massive amount of information on the company website, including the fascinating "20 Years of PopChar" page), I see that it's feature-rich, full of intelligent touches which make it quick to find what you're looking for and insert it, and I can think of all kinds of situations in which this program would be extremely useful.

I will surely pick it up as soon as a similar discount opportunity comes around.

Sep 8 2011 at 9:06pm Copy Link

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K X I bought PopChar Win after the previous Bits sale & have been happy with it and recommending it to my friends & family. Customer service/support has also been very responsive.

Sep 23 2012 at 12:47pm Copy Link

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VLM Does PopChar enable me to create fractions, such as 13/73 or 9/17?

Sep 23 2012 at 3:06pm Copy Link

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K X I'm not sure what you mean exactly. With PopChar, you enter any characters from a font one at a time, so you can type "13/73" with it (as I just did). Unless you're talking about fractions that look like this: ¾?

PopChar is a program for inputting characters, not for formatting, that's up to the features of your word processor.

With PopChar you can filter the font that that you're working with to see which superscript/subscript style fractions are part of the font. For instance, Arial lists ¼, ½, ¾.

For any others, it's up to the program you're using, whether or not it will to recognize something like 13/73 as a fraction and "autocorrect" it into superscript/subscript format.

For instance, if I type 13/73 in Atlantis Word Processor, it will display within Atlantis in superscript/subscript format, but if I copy & paste it directly into this comment box, it comes out like so: 13/73.

Sep 23 2012 at 3:46pm Copy Link

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VLM Atlantis WP does that? Hmmm ...

Thanks for the great explanation!

Sep 23 2012 at 7:10pm Copy Link

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Paul Will PopChar work with the upcoming platform windows 8?
And will this version be available under the license of the current discounted version (without the need to pay for the upgrade)?

Sep 24 2012 at 1:32am Copy Link

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J S Hmmm, I'm also wondering if PopChar version 5.4 already work with Windows 8 because your webpage doesn't say.

Q1. And if v5.4 doesn't already work, then Will the next update or Upgrade that makes PopChar compatible with Windows 8 be free to BUYERS OF TODAY's DEAL?

Q2. As it is already at version 5.4 when Do you expect version 6 will be made available AND Will Version 6 be a PAID UPGRADE too TODAYs BUYERs?

Apart from that hiccup I really do like the idea/program

Sep 25 2012 at 2:43am Copy Link

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Lupke Brother The discount for the family pack is not working. Is this right?

Sep 25 2012 at 3:14am Copy Link

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Avi S Popchar is wonderful program, worth every penny! I purchased it the last time it was offered on BDJ, and there hasn’t been a day since that it hasn’t helped me improve the efficiency of my workflow. I’ll provide two sample real-world use cases.

A] Let’s say you want to input an “h” with a diacritic symbol. Just enter “h” in the search bar, and immediately popchar will show all of the Unicode characters that involve an “h” glyph, with all possible diacritics and accents. Popchar marks those that are available in the current font, and, in case the Unicode char you want is not available in the current font, popchar provides a list of the installed fonts that do support it.

B] The special Unicode chars for “left to right mark”, or “zero width joiner”, etc. tend to be elusive. Popchar lets you find them in an instant and enter them in the current document. (But see below regarding one shortcoming in this area).

Nevertheless, there is also much to be desired in popchar’s interface. The main items I’ve noticed are as follows:

1] I mentioned above the various zero-width Unicode characters. In popchar, these characters are displayed as blanks (without even a boxed border), making it difficult to discern what they are unless you pass your mouse over them (otherwise it just looks like blank space on the screen). It would be much more helpful if popchar would adopt the method used in the Unicode specification, where zero-width characters are displayed in the chart with a code, encircled by a dotted circle. If this is too difficult, any other representation would do as well, as long as there is some visual representation at all.

2] Mouse wheel operation. After entering something in the search bar, there are often more matching characters than fit on a screen, and so the natural thing to do is to use the mouse wheel to scroll. Unfortunately, using the mouse wheel here scrolls the search bar contents (replacing the current search with previous searches), rather than scrolling the results. To scroll the characters, one must first click on the character area (as far as I can tell, there is no way to this whatsoever via the keyboard; even TAB does not work). This is, I believe, a major shortcoming in the workflow. Mousewheel scrolling of the search bar contents is not a needed feature; rather, it usually gets in the way *removes* the desired results. Instead, I believe that the mouse wheel should *always* scroll the character chart, even if the focus is on the search bar. This would allow for a much more efficient workflow!

3] There is precious little support for keyboard navigation, and most operations in popchar must be done via the mouse. I’d really like to see keyboard shortcuts to navigate the list of glyphs, to copy the selected character to the clipboard, and to open and close the global font list.

4] Also: the font size of the characters in the results list can currently only be adjusted using a slider on the bottom. Yet, it is natural for users to want to adjust this on-the-fly, quickly zooming in to examine the differences between similar characters, and quickly zooming out to see more content as appropriate. For this, it would be much more efficient to either have shortcut keys for zoom-in and zoom-out (like MS Word’s Ctrl-[ and Ctrl-] shortcuts, which make the font size smaller and larger), or to support Ctrl-Mousewheel zooming (as in firefox and other browsers).

Sep 25 2012 at 3:23am Copy Link

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Christoph Reichenberger @Paul S, @JS, et.al: The current version should run pretty smooth on Windows 8, but there will be further compatibility refinements in further versions. If you purchase PopChar Win 5.4 today, the upgrade to the next major version will be free for you.

Ergonis Software - Sep 25 2012 at 9:01am Copy Link

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Christoph Reichenberger @Lupke Brother: originally, the discount was intended for the single license only. But we have extended the coupon code now to also work for the family pack.
Please quit and launch your browser again (to clear the cache) and start over with your order, and the coupon should be accepted also for the family pack.

Ergonis Software - Sep 25 2012 at 9:03am Copy Link

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Lupke Brother @ Christoph,

Nice deal, thnx!

Sep 25 2012 at 9:05am Copy Link

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Christoph Reichenberger @Avi S: Thank you very much for your encouraging feedback and for describing two real-world use cases. Also thanks for your feedback concerning improvements. We would appreciate if you could also contact us off-list directly such that we can further discuss your requests in detail.

Ergonis Software - Sep 25 2012 at 9:06am Copy Link

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Emil Kucera @Christoph - I just bought a licence, and I would like to second what AVi S is suggesting - it would improve the program very nicely.
Regards

Sep 25 2012 at 11:40am Copy Link

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DrTeeth This looks so good I am tempted to buy it even if I don't need it! When inserting Hebrew letters, in which direction does PopChar insert them? Your site does not seem to mention this piece of information for Semitic fonts.

Thanks

Sep 25 2012 at 11:41am Copy Link

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Christoph Reichenberger @DrTeeth: PopChar inserts the character pretty much the same way as if you would paste a character to your document. I recommend downloading the product and test it before you purchase - so you can make sure it fits your needs.

Ergonis Software - Sep 25 2012 at 12:09pm Copy Link

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J S Hi Christoph Reichenberger,

Many thanks for your reply to my questions, and your generosity in allowing a free upgrade to version 6 for today's buyers (it sounds like "AVi S" has already suggested some possible tweaks or features to add to the next version).

I must also say that as far as websites go your PopChar Win pages have got all of the information that anyone would conceivably want to know - excellent.

My only hiccup was the name used for my purchased license, but I'll send you an email about that.

Sep 27 2012 at 10:39pm Copy Link

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Niels Erik Karkov I see that the program includes Tamil. I looked for Hindi but it does not seem to be available. I think that a small billion people writes hindi in the Deva script so is there any hope that it will be available?

Mar 3 2013 at 1:22am Copy Link

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Christoph Reichenberger @Niels: PopChar does not add any characters or fonts, but makes the characters available in the fonts you have installed. Devanagari has been defined in the Unicode standard (Range: 0900–097, and Devanagari Extended: Range: A8E0–A8FF). These Hindi characters are available only in a few fonts, e.g., in Arial Unicode MS, in Kokila, Mangal, Utsaah, see the enclosed image.
HTH
ergonis software customer service

Ergonis Software - Mar 3 2013 at 10:12am Copy Link

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Marc Friedrich Will there be an offer for the Mac version as well?

Mar 3 2013 at 12:28pm Copy Link

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Christoph Reichenberger @Marc: No plans at the moment...

Ergonis Software - Mar 3 2013 at 1:11pm Copy Link

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Louis H I am having problems getting the video to stream without problems, so for anyone else who is having problems as well, here is the same video found on Youtube......(It streams without problems for me on YouTube.)

http://youtu.be/HLSYkoerC2o

By the way.... for anyone sitting on the fence for this one...... read the older comments, from previous deals for PopChar, especially the VERY helpful reviews by Avi S.

For the record.... As of 6:30 eastern time US - 03/05/13 - Discount brings the € price down to 15.00..... And this was converted by PayPal to $20.12. Just in case anyone was wondering. That can, of course, vary throughout the day should PayPal adjust the current exchange rate of: 1 USD = 0.745526 €.

(Just didn't want somebody to get all twisted out of shape over 35¢) ;-)

By the way.... it was very easy to enter the ¢ and € characters using PopChar.

Edit - I have found it fairly easy this morning (US eastern time) to use PopChar for adding Special Characters with Photoshop, as well as with text editors and word processors. I have not yet been able to get it to interact with Proshow Producer (for slide show production), but it is quite easy to have notepad open and simply access what I need there and then cut and past it into Proshow. So this is not simply for use with word processing, but can be of assistance with Graphic design as well. I am in the process of finding out which of my other graphic programs it will directly interact with. If i get a chance i will update this info later, but I make no promise to have such info figured out before the end of this deal.

I really like the ability to store favorites when it comes to specialty fonts, symbols and characters I use often when I am working with images. PopChar is going to make this a lot easier. Well worth full price, but even better with the discount.

Mar 5 2013 at 3:03am Copy Link

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Emil Kucera hello, should I be updating from my ver. 5.4 (51-1705) ?
and will it be a free update? The previous 'update' did not work (the one I got an email about), and there were no further messages other than that you are working on it.

Mar 5 2013 at 1:54pm Copy Link

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Christoph Reichenberger @Emil: We need more info to answer your question thoroughly. Please contact our customer service by e-mail. popcharwin (at) ergonis.com. Thank you.

Ergonis Software - Mar 5 2013 at 9:52pm Copy Link

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