Tutorial - Foreign Characters and your Keyboard

Tutorial - Foreign Characters and your Keyboard

To enable your keyboard for foreign characters do the following:

Note: This will not work on ALL computers and keyboards. This is a general tutorial.

For Windows 98 and thereabouts.

• Go to your control panel.
  
• Go to the "Keyboard" options.
  
• Click the Language tab.
  
• Change the language from "United States 101" to "United States-International".
  
• Click OK and exit the Keyboard settings and control panel.
  

Windows XP

• Go to your control panel ( Start > Control Panel for Windows XP ).
  
• Go to the "Date, Time, Language and Regional Options " (This tutorial is for "Category View". In "Classic View" this is listed under "Regional and Language Options").
  
• Under "Pick a Task" choose "Add other languages".
  
• On the "Languages" tab click the "Details" button.
  
• Click on "Add".
  
• In the "Keyboard layout/IME" dropdown select the "United States-International" option and click OK.
  
• Change the "Default input language from"to "United States-International".
  
• Click OK and exit the Keyboard settings and control panel.
  

NOTE: There are ways to easily switch between teh keyboard settings with the "Language Bar" which for simplicity's sake is not covered here.

Your keyboard should now be configured to use the following combinations to type these characters.

Character - Instructions

á - apostrophe, then letter
à - button above tab key, then letter
â - shift-6, then letter
ä - " button, then letter
ç - apostrophe, then C
ñ - ~ then n, or Ctrl + Alt + n
¿ - Ctrl + Alt + /
¡ - Ctrl + Alt + 1 (one)
ß - Ctrl + Alt + s
" - shift + quotation mark, then press spacebar
?' - apostrophe, then press spacebar