Comprehensive List of Characters (Alphabets, Scripts)

Starting from this topic you can find the complete list of characters available for use in Duxbury DBT. The list has become remarkably long, and so this topic provides links to separate tables of those characters, grouped by their Unicode range. When you link to the individual tables of characters, each character has two identification numbers, its Unicode number and its DUSCI number - the DUSCI number is the internal code for a character in DBT.

Prior to presenting the Table of Unicode Ranges, we briefly discuss several script systems that have special characteristics to be aware of if you need to work with them, starting with the Chinese Han characters.

Note: If you find you need help on ways of accessing special characters or alternative scripts, see the topic, Keyboarding into Word and DBT.

Scripts with Special Characteristics for Braille

Chinese - and Other Han - Characters

DBT does not display traditional Chinese ideogram characters. Instead DBT displays an appropriate substitute alphabet based on the language: Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, or Korean - the "Han" group of language scripts. Normally, the language is selected automatically just by selecting the DBT template for importing the file. At need, the automatic selection can be overridden by forcing the language choice in the Global: Import Options dialog, but in almost all cases, letting the template select the correct language is what you want.

These are the choices for how Han characters are imported into DBT:

Korean Hangul Characters

Hangul often compacts 2 or 3 characters into a single symbol. When DBT imports a file, the process is reversed, DBT breaks a single Hangul character into its component parts. In technical terms, all Hangul characters in the range from U+AC00 through U+D7AF are redirected into Hangul Jamo characters in the U+11xx range. DBT uses a mono-spaced font to display those characters. The result can be difficult to read and is certainly jarring to those who are accustomed to reading conventional inkprint Hangul. In this case, it is best to do all editing in Microsoft Word, using DBT as the translation engine and for output.

Arabic and Hebrew Characters

Both Arabic and Hebrew inkprint are written from right to left. DBT displays the inkprint Arabic and Hebrew text from right to left as well. However, the DBT editing cursor does not (as yet) accommodate the right to left flow within a line.

For these scripts, it is best to do all editing in Microsoft Word, using DBT solely as the translation engine and output manager. In this case, if you need to, you can clipboard whole lines from Word into DBT as a way of making changes within a line.

Unicode Ranges of Characters Supported within DBT

As can be seen in the further tables, DBT can import a vast number of characters not found in this table.

The table in this section lists the Unicode ranges that are supported inside of DBT. The first column identifies the character set, the second column gives the start of the Unicode range for that set, and the third column indicates the use of that character set. The possible uses are: for a language, for mathematics, for symbols, or for the International Phonetic Alphabet. The entries in the second column are hyperlinks to the individual tables, each one showing the full Unicode range for that character set and the DUSCI equivalent for each Unicode character.

Table of Unicode Ranges U+0000-U+FFFF Supported by DBT Import

DBT 12.7 sr1 can read thousands of characters beyond U+FFFF. Please read this external web page for the details.

This second, very extensive, table lists all of the 4-digit Unicode ranges, including those not supported in DBT.

The first column indicates the start and end of each range. The second column identifies the character set or other use covered by that range. You will see that most of these entries are hyperlinks.

Note, however, that these are all external hyperlinks to web pages, not links to pages inside DBT Help.

If the last column is blank, then there is no support for these characters in Duxbury DBT. If the last column is "Word import", it means that these characters are supported by conversion into other Duxbury supported characters during import. If the last column is "DUSCI supported" then that Unicode range is in the previous table (in the section above).

Unicode Ranges Beyond U+FFFF

DBT 12.7 sr1 can read thousands of characters beyond U+FFFF. Please read this external web page for the details.