Hieroglyphica

Getting started

Placing glyphs on the canvas

Drag & drop any glyph from the character list on the right onto the canvas — it snaps to the nearest grid point.
Search by Gardiner code or name in the top field of the right panel.
Browse by Gardiner category from the or A, B, C.. dropdown.
Each placed glyph also appears in the Gardiner: strip above the canvas, building a running transliteration.

Pasting a series (MdC)

The small Paste series box (lower-left, above the toolbar) accepts either:
- Gardiner codes separated by -, space or comma — e.g. A1-D21-N35.
- A run of raw hieroglyph characters — e.g. 𓂀𓏏𓊵 — pasted from any text.
- A mix of the two.
Press Enter or click Add Glyphs to drop the whole sequence onto the canvas in order.

Linear vs. spatial

Choose Individual signs in the dialog to lay glyphs out in 2D the way textbooks and JSesh do.
Single text run stays linear and can't show stacking — but spatial operators auto-switch to the layout engine, so you rarely have to think about it.
See MdC spatial layout for the full operator and markup reference.

MdC spatial layout — operators & markup

Manuel de Codage notation typed into the Individual signs input. Operators below run tightest → loosest; everything composes, so a span can be coloured, enclosed, and bracketed at once. Each symbol is shown with its meaning and a worked example.

Round-trip: the reverse also works — select signs on the canvas and press M (or the →MdC toolbar button) to copy them back out as MdC code, with the * : - structure and any line breaks reconstructed from their layout.

Spatial operators

Symbol	Meaning	Example
`*`	Place side by side	`D21*X1`
`:`	Stack one over another	`M17:X1`
`-`	Separate cadrats (groups) along the line	`A1-N35`
`( )`	Group, to control precedence	`(M17:X1)*N35`

Spacing & line breaks

Symbol	Meaning	Example
space / `_`	Word gap	`A1 N35`
2 spaces / `__`	Sentence gap (wider)	`A1__N35`
`!`	New line	`A1!N35`
`!!`	Page / section break (large vertical gap)	`A1!!N35`

Enclosures

Wrap a span in a drawn frame. Royal-name cartouches are made with the toolbar tool, not here.

Symbol	Meaning	Example
`<S … >S`	Serekh (paneled façade)	`<S-G5>S`
`<H … >H`	Hwt (enclosure)	`<H-O1>H`
`<F … >F`	Plain frame	`<F-A1>F`

Ink colour (rubric)

A colour stays on for every following sign until you switch it again.

Symbol	Meaning	Example
`$r`	Red	`$r-A1-N35`
`$g`	Green	`$g-A1`
`$b`	Black (default)	`$r-A1-$b-X1`

Damaged & lost signs

Symbol	Meaning	Example
`#b … #e`	Translucent grey wash over a damaged span	`#b-A1-N35-#e`
`-#-`	A fully destroyed quadrat	`A1-#-N35`
`?` / `??`	Small / large lacuna (dashed gap box)	`A1-?-N35`

Editorial brackets (Leiden)

Wrap a span to record the editor's reading; each is drawn as a distinct mark on both sides.

Symbol	Meaning	Example
`[[ … ]]`	Erased	`[[ A1 ]]`
`[{ … }]`	Superfluous	`[{ A1 }]`
`[" … "]`	Vanished	`[" A1 "]`
`[' … ']`	Scribal addition	`[' A1 ']`
`[& … &]`	Editorial restoration	`[& A1 &]`

Worked example: <S-G5>S-F-R8 draws a serekh with the falcon, then the viper and the flag on the same baseline.

Toolbar

The toolbar runs along the bottom of the screen.

▭Cartouche — royal-name oval

──Line

→Arrow

▭Rectangle

◯Circle

✎Freehand pencil

[ ]Bracket pair — drops an inward-facing [ ]; drag each half to enclose text

💬Speech bubble

PagePage guide — cycles off → portrait → landscape. Draws a US-Letter frame: solid line = paper edge, dotted line = printable area

⌨Text input (incl. transliteration & Coptic)

𓂀Hieroglyph input (highlighted button) — opens the dialog for a text run, individual signs (MdC spatial layout), or a three-line block

BGUpload a background image

BG αBackground opacity slider

🎨Set the canvas color

Editing & shortcuts

Selecting and moving objects

Select: click a glyph or shape. Drag to move; drag a corner to scale; drag the top handle to rotate.
Click the ink, not the box: selection hit-tests against the sign's actual pixels, so when two glyphs sit close together you grab the one your cursor is on — no more fighting their oversized bounding boxes.
Multi-select: Shift + click, or marquee-drag an empty area. Ctrl + A selects everything on the canvas; Esc deselects.
Copy / paste: Ctrl + C then Ctrl + V stamps a copy with a small offset (repeat to cascade); Ctrl + J duplicates in place; Ctrl + X cuts.
Fine move: select, then use arrow keys (hold Shift for 1px steps).
Edit text: double-click a text object.
Pan canvas: hold Alt and drag.
Zoom: mouse wheel over the canvas.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keys	Action
`←` `↑` `→` `↓`	Move selection by 5 px
`Shift` + arrow	Fine move by 1 px
`Ctrl` + `A`	Select all objects on the canvas
`Esc`	Deselect
`Delete` / `Backspace`	Remove selection
`Ctrl` + `C`	Copy selected sign(s)
`Ctrl` + `X`	Cut selected sign(s)
`Ctrl` + `V`	Paste with a cascading offset
`Ctrl` + `J`	Duplicate selection in place
`Ctrl` + `Z`	Undo last action
`Ctrl` + `Y` or `Ctrl` + `Shift` + `Z`	Redo
`Ctrl` + `←` / `→`	Cycle through objects on the canvas
`Ctrl` + `L`	Lock / unlock selected object(s)
`Ctrl` + `D`	Distribute selection evenly (needs ≥ 2 objects)
`Ctrl` + `S`	Save workspace as JSON
`H`	Horizontal align
`T`	Align tops
`B`	Align bottoms
`L`	Align lefts
`C`	Center horizontally — lines up rows on a shared vertical axis (multi-glyph rows move as a unit)
`R`	Mirror / reverse selected glyph(s)
`M`	Copy selection as MdC code (also the →MdC toolbar button)
`F`	Fit all content in the window (zoom to show every sign)
`Alt` + drag	Pan canvas

Alignment keys also operate on multi-selections.

Custom text and transliteration

Click ⌨ to open the text dialog.
The dialog includes special-character keys for Egyptological transliteration (ꜣ ꜥ ḥ ḫ ẖ š ḳ ṯ ḏ) and a Coptic row.
Set the font size before inserting, or double-click the text on the canvas to edit it later.

Dictionary search

The dictionary is built in and loads automatically — no upload needed.
Search by Gardiner codes separated by spaces (e.g. A1 Z2) or by transliteration (e.g. rHty).
Matches are highlighted; non-ASCII text is enlarged for readability.
Resize results: drag the small horizontal handle just below the character list to grow or shrink the results panel.
Drag to canvas: highlight glyphs in a result (e.g. 𓀀𓁐𓏥) and drag the selection onto the canvas — they're placed as a bottom-aligned row.

“What does this say?” — read glyphs back

Right-click a sign on the canvas and choose 𓂀 What does this say? to look it up. Right-click a selection of signs to read them together, or right-click empty space to read the whole canvas.
Signs are read in reading order — rows top-to-bottom, left-to-right within a row, top-to-bottom within a stacked cadrat — not as an unordered jumble.
Results are ranked by closeness: Exact (the signs are a word), then words containing them (your signs are part of a longer word), then words found inside a longer run, then single-sign readings (collapsed).
Click any glyph run in the results to drop those signs back onto the canvas.

𓏞 Inspect / Convert — every form of the selection

Select signs on the canvas, then right-click and choose 𓏞 Inspect / Convert. A small panel shows the selection in four forms, each with a 📋 copy button:
Glyphs — the signs themselves in reading order.
Unicode — the code points, e.g. U+131CB U+13429.
MdC — Manuel de Codage, the same string the →MdC button copies.
Reading — judged on all the selected signs together. If they spell a word in the dictionary, that reading is shown. Otherwise you get a per-sign breakdown (· separates signs, ? marks a sign with no entry) and a note that the combination may still be a valid word that simply isn't in the dictionary yet.

Saving & exporting

File menu (≡) — save, load, export, wiki

The ≡ button on the right side of the toolbar opens a single menu:

Save as JSON: full workspace snapshot (canvas + Gardiner strip).
Save as PDF: exports a US-Letter page. With the Page guide on, the PDF is exactly the page you see — glyphs keep their positions at 1:1 (turn the guide on, lay out within it, then export). With the guide off, the export crops tightly to your glyphs and centres them, scaling down only if the work is larger than the page (you'll see a "scaled to N%" note). The PDF library loads lazily on first click.
Open JSON…: load a previously saved workspace.
Gardiner signs (Wiki): opens the Wikipedia sign list in a new tab.
Right-click the canvas to use the browser's native save / copy on the rendered image.

Tip — workflow: build the line of glyphs first, then use H or T to snap them to a shared baseline, and Ctrl+D to distribute them evenly.

Tip — laying out a page: turn on the Page guide and arrange your glyphs inside the frame. The PDF then comes out exactly as shown — the solid line is the paper edge, the dotted line is the printable margin. Keep signs inside the dotted line and they print 1:1 in place; anything outside the solid edge is off the page. The guide itself is locked — it can't be selected, moved, or deleted, and it never appears in the export.

Background image

BG uploads a reference image behind the canvas.
BG α sets its opacity (0–100%).
Pan offsets reset when the background is hidden or replaced.

Learn more

The Gardiner signs (Wiki) entry in the ≡ menu opens the Gardiner sign list on Wikipedia — a useful reference for codes, categories, and meanings.

𓏞ΙΕΡΟΓΛΥΦΩ — Help Guide

Getting started

Placing glyphs on the canvas

Pasting a series (MdC)

Linear vs. spatial

MdC spatial layout — operators & markup

Spatial operators

Spacing & line breaks

Enclosures

Ink colour (rubric)

Damaged & lost signs

Editorial brackets (Leiden)

Toolbar

Editing & shortcuts

Selecting and moving objects

Keyboard shortcuts

Custom text and transliteration

Dictionary search

“What does this say?” — read glyphs back

𓏞 Inspect / Convert — every form of the selection

Saving & exporting

File menu (≡) — save, load, export, wiki

Background image

Learn more