Guide to typing accents & international characters!!

¡Número 1! (Copy/paste from a program that lists all funny characters)

• Click Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Character Map
  
• Select a weirdo character from the list there, and click copy.
  
• Edit->Paste (or press Ctrl+V) from any program, to insert whatever characters you copied to the clipboard.

I very rarely need special characters when I write so this option is good enough for me.

(Note: Click on the character you want and, in the lower right hand corner of the window, you will see a keystroke command that will give you the specified character. These commands consist of the Alt key plus a 3 or 4-digit code. A list of these comes up next...)

Numéro 2. (Hold down Alt & type impossible to remember numbers that correspond to each character)

While I think this option is the hardest to use, it's faster than Number 1 (as long as you've got a photographic memory or a printout of the list below) & doesn't require changing your keyboard layout/IME.

So here's the dirt on #2.

• Hold down Alt and type in 3 or 4-digit numbers
  
• It won't work with the numbers in a horizontal line above the letters. You've gotta use the numpad on the right (which means it ain't gonna happen on most laptops)
  
• In some versions of Windows, you've gotta have NumLock on for this to work (the light will be lit).

(Use funny--but more logical & memorable--keyboard combinations, after switching to the US-International keyboard IME)

• Click Start->Settings->Control Panel
  
• Double click on the "Keyboard" icon, then single click on the "Input Locales" tab (called "Language" in some versions of Windows -- in every case it is the second tab), then on the "Properties" button.
  
• In some versions you will see the "English (United States)" keyboard selected in a box with a small down-arrow to the right. In that case, go on to step 4. In other versions you'll see the "English (United States)" keyboard selected and a "Properties" button. Click on the "Properties" button.
  
• Click the down-arrow next to the keyboard currently installed. Scroll till you see the "US-International" keyboard specification and select it.
  
• Then keep clicking OK till you return to the Control Panel.

Once the driver has been installed, using the accented characters is fairly easy because the characters for acute, grave, and circumflex accents and tildes have now been made into "dead" keys, which means that nothing happens immediately upon pressing the apostrophe key or another accent key. If the next key pressed is a vowel, an accented vowel will appear. For an accented a (á), for example, just type the apostrophe, then the a. Also use an apostrophe to go from c to ç. For an è, type the backward apostrophe ` (I think it's called a grave or something) then the e: è. Write î's by typing the circumflex (shift 6: ^) then the i: î. This also works with the double quote (") for the umlaut/dieresis: ä, and the tilde (~) n: ñ.

Note that if the next key entered after the accent is not a vowel or such, then you will get the apostrophe or other mark followed by the letter: 'n, ^p, ~d. If you want to enter just an apostrophe or other mark, enter the mark followed by the space key to get ' " ^ ~, etc.

Another way to mess up characters using the 'US-International keyboard' is to use Ctrl+Alt+(some letter). Ctrl+Alt+a = á. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+a = Á. Ctrl+Alt+n = ñ. And so forth.

In fact, once you're using US-International you should try out Ctrl+Alt and Ctrl+Alt+Shift with every character and you'll find some cool shortcuts. For example: Ctrl+Alt+1 = ¡. Ctrl+Alt+/ = ¿. Ctrl+Alt+5 = €. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+4 = £. There be more good stuff too.


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Let me know if you need help with any of the 3 methods I've posted.

For this I must buy an American keyboard? Or do other keyboards comply?


Hmmm - I thought my keyboard would do it, but it won't...au revoir umlauts!

Or just use the Character Map in the Accessories folder. I don't know if newer PCs still have this - it's on my ancient Win 95 machine.

Not on my '98...

â ö



yeah.......it works! What about the double S in German? What's it called now........I forget.

Yes - but not in accessories - and no umlauts!

I just use a black felt pen and pencil in the squiggly things on my monitor screen.

Jespah, using Character Map is the first method I listed (and yeah every version of Windows has it).


Dlowan, the first 2 methods are unrelated to your keyboard layout so will work no matter what, and the 3rd method should work OK with an Aus keyboard -- the worst that could happen is that a some of the keys (most likely just a couple punctuation keys) will type something different than what is written on them -- in which case if it's too confusing you could just switch the keyboard layout setting back to how it was before.

If you have a Windows 98 CD around I can help you get Character Map going (it's not installed by default with some versions of Windows).

Lola, here ya go

§ = Alt+0167

Or, if if you're using US-International:

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S


If there're any other characters people need a shortcut for gimme a holler.

Do you know where to find the little circle which represents degrees?

Thanks Wy. That works good.

Oh thanks Wy. I'd already listed the german ß so I figured double S was referring to something else. Anywho, thanks a lot.

Thanks to you, too, for bringing this up. Everyone should know these characters are available, even if many are not used much in American English.