JSesh

JSesh is a word processor; yet, it is not a common one. This tool can help you process hieroglyphic texts, which were used in Ancient Egypt.

You may wonder why anyone would need to use such a tool; the reason is that it meets the needs of Egyptologists of inserting this type of symbols in their publications.

As esoteric as hieroglyphics may seem, the application makes the whole thing a lot easier than drawing them by hand. Its interface is composed of various windows. There is the editor window, in which the hieroglyphic text is viewed and edited. To enter a symbol, you can use the menu on the button, open the desired category and find the it. Another way to do the same is by entering its corresponding code. For example, if you type E6, you get the symbol of a horse.

In addition, you can view other windows, such as the Glossary and the Hieroglyphic Palette. The Glossary helps you organize the most commonly used symbols and the Hieroglyphic Palette allows searching for a given symbol and provides a description of it.

It is good that the editor allows copying and pasting the selected symbols into other applications. Likewise, it lets you export them as files. In this regard, various common document and picture formats are supported, including PDF, JPG, PNG, SVG, EMF and MACPICT.

All in all, JSesh is a unique tool with a use limited to very specific publications. It is open-source, so you can use, modify and distribute it without any restrictions. As additional benefits, it comes with multiple examples of hieroglyphic texts while documentation is available online as well.