[Solved] Printing Chess Pieces Symbols in Writer

[Craig209Smith]

I want to print the symbols mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_symbols_in_Unicode in Writer but I can't seem to be able to figure it out. I don't think these symbols are in any of the Special Character tables for any font. I would appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction because obviously I don't have a clue how to accomplish. If I could get these symbol to print in any .odt document - I could cut and paste from there.

I appreciated all the help everyone provided. Everything submitted works great but the solution that uses Chess Fonts works best for me. Thanks again to everyone - you made an old man very happy.

[Zizi64]

The linked article shows the name of the fonts, what contain these Unicode symbols. Try those fonts or some similar full featured Unicode type fonts, like the DejaVu font family. You can put these characters into a document by usage of the code number, or you can write a macro fot this task.

[Craig209Smith]

Thank you for your quick response, and I am certain if I was a computer programmer it would make perfect sense to me but I am not. I am just a 74 year old man trying to play correspondence chess. What I need is detailed specifics on which font to chose, which subset, and how to input the code, Example:
1. Click in the .odt document you want to insert a chess piece
2. Click on INSERT on the top bar between VIEW & FORMAT
3. From the Drop Down menu click of SPECIAL CHARACTERS
4.In the FONT Box choose DEJAVU SERIF
5. In the SUBSET Box choose MISCELLANEOUS SYMBOLS
6. Place your cursor where you want a BLACK CHESS PAWN to appear
7. Hold down the ALT key while typing 9823 from the numerical pad
8 Release the ALT key and a BLACK CHESS PAWN should appear in your document

Now when I do the above eight steps I get a ç not a Black Chess Pawn so obviously I am either choosing the wrong font, the wrong subset, or I am not inputting it correctly. I need specifics. Once I have the twelve chess pieces in a .odt document, I can cut and paste them anywhere I want them but finding the correct combination of fonts, subsets, and inputting method is an almost impossible challenge for this old man. If someone can give me specific or reply with the chess pieces, U+2654 through U+265F, I think I should be able to cut and paste them from your replay. Thank you very much for being patient with this old man.

[FJCC]

I made the attached document with the extension Compose Special Characters, entering the hexadecimal value for the unicode character. e.g. 2654. The font called for is Times New Roman.

[John_Ha]

1. Do a Google search for chess pieces fonts to find sites like Chess Fonts which have free chess fonts.

2. Download a TTF font from the site. Right-click the font file (it will be called something like fred.TTF) and choose Install.

I downloaded the first, Chess Cases and it was a ZIP file called cases.zip. I double clicked cases.zip and dragged CASEFONT.TTF onto the desktop. I right-clicked CASEFONT.TTF and selected Install. This installed the font.

3. You now have your chess pieces as characters so start AOO and select Chess Cases for the font.

4. Go Insert > Special characters. Choose Chess cases for the font and you will see all the characters. Select one (or more) character(s) and they will appear in the document.

These are the pieces as displayed in a Writer text document at 24 point size.

[Zizi64]

Here is an another approach:
You can use the Autocorrect function. Set the pairs for the automatic substitute. Copy the chess characters from the linked site of the first post in this topic:

Then you will able to use the abbreviations
White Queen = whqn,
White King = whkg,
White rook = whrk
etc...
as standalone "words" in the text the office suite will prompt substitute the "words" with the desired character. It works with ALL of full featured Unicode fonts.

[John_Ha]

This is my .odt file with the pieces in it. You MUST download and install the Chess Cases font to see the symbols correctly.

It seems that lower case " b " is a white bishop on white background and lower case " v " is a black bishop on white background. Upper case " B " is a white bishop on black background and upper case " V " is a black bishop on black background.

The other symbols allow you to create a complete board with edges and row/column identifiers. CHESCASE.doc comes with the freeware font and describes it.

Some notes.

1. If you want to send a .odt/.doc file to someone else then they must have the font file for it to display correctly. Hence, FJCC's method may be better as it uses the chess pieces available in all fonts like TNR, Arial etc.

2. If you send someone a PDF AOO embeds the font file in the PDF so the symbols will display correctly even if the recipient does not have the font.

CHESCASE.DOC

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chess pieces with the Chess Cases font.odt

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