Special Letters

Sometimes a character must be sorted as if it were a character string. For example, the German character ß is sorted as if it were ss. Another example is ö, which is sorted as if it were oe. Special letters are called expanding characters in multilingual linguistic sorts.

The special letters table shows:

• The Unicode value (UTF-16) of the special letter
• The glyph of the special letter
• The major sort value of the first character in the string that represents the special letter (Major Sort 1)
• The minor sort value of the first character in the string that represents the special letter (Minor Sort 1)
• The major sort value of the second character in the string that represents the special letter (Major Sort 2)
• The minor sort value of the second character in the string that represents the special letter (Minor Sort 2)

For example, the entry for ß in German is:

Unicode Value	Glyph	Major Sort 1	Minor Sort 1	Major Sort 2	Minor Sort 2
\u00df	ß	105	1	105	2

Searching for a Special Letter

You can search for an existing special letter:

1. Click Search. The Table Search dialog box will appear.
2. Enter the Unicode value (UTF-16) or the glyph of the special letter or any of the sort values in the appropriate field of the Table Search dialog box.
3. Click Go.

If you entered the Unicode value (UTF-16) or glyph of the special letter, then the row will appear in the stationary dialog box.

If you entered any of the sort values, then the first occurrence of the sort value in the table will be highlighted. The row will not appear in the stationary dialog box unless the sort value is unique.

Adding, Modifying, and Deleting Information

You can add a special letter to the sort:

1. Click New.
2. Specify the Unicode value (UTF-16) and the glyph for the special letter and the sort values in the appropriate fields of the stationary dialog box.
3. Click Add.

You can modify existing information:

1. Click the row that you want to modify. It will appear in the stationary dialog box.
2. Make the desired changes.
3. Click Modify.

You can delete a row:

1. Click the row that you want to delete. It will appear in the stationary dialog box.
2. Click Delete.

To save information that you have changed or added, see Defining a New Monolingual Linguistic Sort.