Enabling Greek Characters on Your Keyboard


The layout of the polytonic keyboard.

You can type Greek text without downloading anything or changing your keyboard. All you need to do is:

  1. Open control panel from the start menu
  2. Open the file called "Region and Language"
  3. Click the "Keyboards and Languages" tab
  4. Click the "Change keyboards..." button
  5. Click the "Add" button to add a keyboard
  6. Find the division "Greek"
  7. After clicking "Greek" you will see a number of different keyboard layouts. Click the box named "Greek Polytonic"
  8. Click "OK"
  9. You're done, you now should be able to type Greek text. To change between your current language and Greek all you now need to do is hold left Shift + Alt to swap between languages.

A Greek character's key will generally be its English equivalent. If you wish just to place an accent mark, a breathing mark, etc. use the key combination (desired breathing mark, etc.)+period(.). To use the "·" punctuation mark use the key combination shift ]+ . ="·".

Note: depending on the operating system you are running you may not be able to enable Greek text via this method(ie: Apple OS).

You will also be able to find an online Greek keyboard with accenting and so on at https://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/greek_ancient.htm This will be good for producing individual words for an essay or similar project but not very effective if you need to type extensively in Greek.