THL Toolbox > Tibetan Texts > Inputting a Tibetan Text > Changes to the Tibetan input manual in English > mchan 'grel formatting
mchan 'grel formatting
Note: The difference below starts after "Instead," and goes through to the end.
10. Mchan ’grel
mchan ’grel refers to the custom of someone writing small notes in a text written by someone else, and then writing a small chain of dots (mchan btags) to connect any given note to the point in the original text to which it applies. If the book that you are typing has མཆན་འགྲེལ་, you should enter it using the following method. The result will not look like མཆན་འགྲེལ་ does in the printed copy of your book. However, when the computer file is used to create a pecha, the མཆན་འགྲེལ་ that you have entered can be automatically formatted to appear in the traditional way.
To type མཆན་འགྲེལ་, you will not enter in the small dots (མཆན་རྟགས་) that lead from the place of insertion to the note. Instead,
- Insert a footnote in the place where the མཆན་འགྲེལ་ begins.
- In the footnote, put the contents of the མཆན་འགྲེལ་.
- Select the contents of the མཆན་འགྲེལ་ and apply the "Annotation Block,anb" style. Since this is a paragraph style, you can mark individual characters within the མཆན་འགྲེལ་ as "unclear,uc" or with whatever character styles, if any, are appropriate.
The result will have a footnote number in the text, and something like this in the footnote itself: མཆན་འགྲེལ་ཟེར་ཡ་འདི་མཆན་བུའི་ཡི་གེ་རེད།
An alternative method is to first enter in the text of the note at the appropriate location as described above. Then, highlight it and press Ctrl+F1. This will turn the highlighted text into the note style.
Note: The words ཡང་བྱུང་ in the context of a མཆན་འགྲེལ་ are the rough Tibetan equivalent of "variant reading."
