Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / February 2006

No, you can buy Aw-hee haw-ho keyboards in most good retailers.

Buy your PCs in France, then you will get the correct keyboard.
Only getting a French keyboard may work, but I have not tried it.

Why all this sensible advice?  I thought that Paul's comment was a
joke, certainly mine was (a deliberate misunderstanding of accent).

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair

There's no such thing as a "standard ASCII keyboard".  The method you
give below is part of the Windows operating system, and works regardless
of what keyboard you use it with (as long as it's a PC-compatible one).
 Other operating systems have their own ways of typing special characters.

<snip>

Which versions of Mac OS does it come with?  It doesn't seem to be on
mine (X.3.9).

But the method for typing accented characters on the Mac is quite
simple.  To use your lowercase examples:

[Option] + `, a = à
[Option] + e, a = á
[Option] + i, a = â

[Option] + c    = ç

[Option] + `, e = è
[Option] + e, e = é
[Option] + i, e = ê
[Option] + u, e = ë
[Option] + i, i = î
[Option] + u, i = ï

No prizes for guessing how you type the uppercase versions!

Stewart.

Wooframus J. Burgher a écrit :

<snip>

Hello, and excuse my english...

I my Swiss french keyboard I've the accents, but I can make 'accented'
letters too pressing in first the accent alone and then the letter :

key ^ + key e = ê
key ` + key a = à
kes ´ + key A = Á
...

François

Both above-described methods work for entering accented characters, but
are awkward and cumbersome if you need to produce more than just short
snippets of text.

Fortunately, there is a much easier way: Simply change your keyboard
layout for something that allows you to produce the accented characters
directly. (No, not the physical layout, but the software-based
interpretation of it.) Windows comes with three "extended" keyboard
layout definitions for the English-speakers:

United States International
United Kingdom Extended
Canadian Multilingual Standard

All these have extra characters mapped behind the right Alt button
("AltGr"), and they also have so-called "dead keys" which allow
producing accented characters as combinations, in a rather logical way.

You can view all the above-mentioned layouts here (unfortunately, the
page only works with Internet Explorer:)
<http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/keyboards.mspx>.

See the following pages for more information about usage:

<http://www.starr.net/is/type/intlchart.html>
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306560&sd=tech> <http://www.csus.edu/fl/keyboard.html> <http://www.csbsju.edu/mcl/resource/Use%20Int%20Keyboard.pdf>The keyboard layout can be changed in the Control Panel, but the exactlocation of the setting depends on the Windows version you're using.- On pre-XP Windows versions, the keyboard layout can be changed inControl Panel's "Keyboard" applet.- On Windows XP and Windows 2003, the same option has been moved in the"Regional and Language Options" applet. (Select the "Language" tab andpress the "Details..." button.) You may have to switch to "Classic view"in Control panel to see the "Regional and Language Options" applet.Another way to launch it is typing "control international" on thecommand line.It is also possible to define custom keyboard layouts, with just thecharacters you need, in whichever buttons you like. This can beaccomplished by using Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator: <http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx>(The technically-minded might also want to take a look at<http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/handson/dev/inputinwin.mspx>,which gives further details on how keyboard layouts work in Windows,and what are some of the common design principles that should beadhered to when creating one on your own.)--znark