FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions
Please add your questions here, or by posting them to the discussion group. Answers to your questions will appear as and when users post them.

When an entry in this FAQ has grown to the status of an article or is stable and definitive, it may be moved to a more static home.

Guides to Good Practice
Many guides to good practice can be found at the following sites:


 * Stoa Consortium
 * Digital Medievalist
 * Classics@ vol. 2 ("Cultural Informatics") (Temporarily unavailable)
 * Arts and Humanities Data Service
 * King's Digital Consultancy Service
 * Ancient World Mapping Centre

(We should index significant guides from these sites, and others, some time, a beginning of this index can be found at the bottom of the [Resources] page...)

Essential preliminary

 * 1) I already have technical support, so what's this Humanities Computing?
 * 2) Surely a web publication is less prestigious than a paper book?
 * 3) What makes a digital publication useful?
 * 4) What are the implications of using XML/a database for a text project?
 * 5) Should I use TLG betacode or Unicode for polytonic classical Greek in my electronic publications?
 * 6) What are open standards and why are they important?
 * 7) Electronic publication: online vs. static media

Typographical and font issues

 * 1) What Greek fonts should I use on my PC/Mac? (short answer: Unicode)
 * 2) How do I type Greek on my PC/Mac?
 * 3) How do I make sure that Greek in my web pages displays properly in Firefox/Explorer?
 * 4) What typographical tools/standards should I use to have more control over the appearance of my printed text?
 * 5) Why type Greek in LaTeX with Babel and psgreek?


 * 1) How to get psgreek on MiKTeX?
 * 2) How do I type and display Sanskrit on my PC/Mac?
 * 3) How do I install WinGreek under Word Perfect 5.0?
 * 4) How do I type and display Hebrew / Russian / Hierglyphics / Cuneiform / etc.?
 * 5) What Unicode characters should we use to encode Greek metrical symbols?
 * 6) How can I type a circumflex onomikron, epsilon or any other letter?

Other user issues

 * 1) How do I find Classical sites on the WWW?
 * 2) Where can I find databases of Greek and Latin texts?
 * 3) What software do I need to search the TLG database (or PHI, etc.)?


 * 1) How do I scan Greek text as text (OCR)
 * 2) What digital critical editions of texts in Greek and Latin are published on the WWW?

Research questions

 * 1) What computer simulation tools are available for modelling populations, etc.?
 * 2) How do I encode GIS infomation in my archaeological plans?
 * 3) What flavour of XML should I use to mark-up my text project for the web?
 * 4) How can computer applications assist in the teaching/learning of languages?
 * 5) What tools are available for parsing Greek/Latin?
 * 6) What tools are available for concording Greek/Latin texts


 * 1) Has anyone done any work on speech-recognition/simulation in Greek and Latin?
 * 2) How should we encode lexicographic data?
 * 3) What software is available for marking up and representing prosopography/genealogies?
 * 4) What statistical software/advice should I be looking at?