Job Discussion Forums

[Aramas]

This might be a rather ignorant question, but how do people type those funky little accents? I'm not referring to the " Ah bluh mah nuhz at choo, you feelthy Eenglish peeg-dogs!" type of accent, but rather the appendages on letters, like the dangly bit on 'c''s, and the various little 'hats' that latin vowels wear with such aplomb.

I'm aware of the different fonts but there are simply not enough keys to accomodate mixing and matching of all the variations that I need. In addition to that C thingie, I require the acute, circumflex, grave, tilde and two dots accents with which to decorate my horribly mangled Portuguese vowels.

What's the secret?

[Ludwig]

I have them all on my keyboard but then I use a Chinese one (I am learning to type Chinese - no mean feat). I suppose you could type on Word and transfer the text over. All the accents to which you refer are on 'Insert' file drop down menu, then 'symbol'. If you have a real version of Word you can download more such accents to your heart's content!

[Roger]

If you change the language on your computer - say to FRENCH or SPANISH - you can use those diacritical symbols or letters with them.

[justcolleen]

Here are some keyboard shortcuts that should help you:

http://lrcnt.fas.harvard.edu/Resources/Documentation/accents.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~awinkelried/keyboard_shortcuts.html

http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/lss/infolab/fldocs/pckeys.htm

Colleen

[Aramas]

Cool, thanks. I thought that there might be some kind of ctrl/alt shortcuts. Using Symbols is too slow.

I found this on one of the links:

[Ludwig]

I think you missed the point. When you use 'symbol' insert, it will highlight automatically the shortcut for the same symbol to save you having to use it next time.

[nolefan]

Are you on a Mac or a PC? If you're on a mac using os X just use the "option" key with the letter.

� is produced by option + e
� +a
� + u
� +o
� +c
� +i
� + n

you get the idea.... as easy as it could be

[Aramas]

I used that Symbol thing all through uni for the Greek letters I needed for maths and physics. It works, but I figured there must be an easier way. The ctrl-alt codes are still ungainly, but should be a lot quicker and easier to use once I get the hang of them. Obrigada pela informa��o, Colleen! Sa�de! I only need to know half a dozen codes, so it should be no problem. I wouldn't bother for Greek letters because there are too many of them and they're not used enough to justify learning the codes.

I must admit I'm sorely tempted to change to a Mac. An operating system should shut up and do as it's told, and Windows fails miserably on both counts - particularly since XP SP2. Microsoft seems to believe that they have the right to override the user.

Unfortunately there are no high-end naval architecture suites available for the Mac at present. MaxSurf is still available for Mac, but is no longer being updated and is several versions behind the Windows variant. Even if there was one available I'd find it difficult to justify $3k + to replace the software that I already own and have several thousand hours of experience with. Looks like I'm stuck with an operating system made by and for morons.

[nolefan]

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[Aramas]

[Stephen Jones]

You don't buy a keyboard with them on, you simply change the settings in Regional Settings in Control Panel. You then get a language bar next to the system tray, and switch keyboard layouts with the mouse or a keyboard shortcut. I print out all the letters of the Spanish keyboard and keep it on a stand next to the computer.It does fine for all Romance languages and for German.

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[Stephen Jones]

The Spanish keyboard is perfet for typing English. I learnt to touch type on a Spanish typewriter, but when I moved to Saudi for the first time I had to buy a typewriter with an American keyboard so I had to adapt.

You still don't seem to understand that the signs on the letters on the keyboard have nothing to do with whatever letters you chose those keys to represent. If you have a UK keyboard but haven't changed the default Windows US qwerty keyboard, you will get the US layout, and unplugging the keyboard and putting in a Spanish one, or a Chinese one, will not make an iota of difference.

[dmb]

At home I use a QWERTY British keyboard
At work I use a QWERTY Turkish one. Due to the alphabets having a few different characters and the punctuation being in different places.It gets a bit confusing.{I'm making my excuses for any typos and mis-use of comas}