From The Scripters Wiki

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Entering International Characters

Have you ever wanted to input foreign characters and couldn't remember the code? Or maybe you just don't want to go hunting in the Character Map all the time... This page will talk about the "dead keys" that will allow to enter these.

It's easy: á Á ç Ç ö ¿ ¡ Ñ Ã Õ À ò ü € ¥ ©

And more! and they're easy to remember. In the old style, to enter á you would have to type alt+0225. Now, you just type 'a. Or `a for à, ~n for ñ, 'c for ç, etc.

How to Set it Up

• Step 1: Click on "Start" and go the "Control Panel" and then select "Regional and Language Options" (see below)

• Step 2: On the "Languages" tab, click "Details" (see below)

• Step 3: This is where you make the changes necessary to enter international characters. You can either add a language or use one that is already there. I added Spanish, but you can put it on your default language if you choose. No matter how you choose to enable it, click on "Add" and make sure "Keyboard layout/IME" is checked and then select "United States-International" and click "OK" to go back.

• Step 4: Click on the button that says "Language Bar..." and modify settings as you choose. Hit "OK" until all dialogs have disappeared. A new "toolbar" will appear, either on your taskbar or floating. You can move it to either location.Simply click the square with "EN" on it to switch between layouts.

Characters List

Once set up, certain keys become "dead" and don't input until another key is pressed. Those "dead" keys are: the apostrophe/quote and the tilde key (next to the 1). Many characters may be accessed with these keys or with the right-alt key. Some are only the dead keys, and some are only the right-alt.

'a == á 'A == Á 'e == é 'E == É 'i == í 'I == Í 'o == ó 'O == Ó 'u == ú 'U == Ú 'c == ç 'C == Ç "u == ü "U == Ü "a == ä "A == Ä "e == ë "E == Ë "i == ï "I == Ï

"o == ö "O == Ö `a == à `A == À `e == è `E == È `i == ì `I == Ì `o == ò `O == Ò ~n == ñ ~N == Ñ ~a == ã ~A == Ã ~o == õ ~O == Õ

¿ == right-alt+? (no shift) ¡ == right-alt+1 ¥ == right-alt+- € == right-alt+5 ç == right-alt+, Ç == right-alt+shift+, ñ == right-alt+n Ñ == right-alt+shift+n © == right-alt+c ¢ == right-alt+shift+c £ == right-alt+shift+4 å == right-alt+w Å == right-alt+shift+w ‘ == right-alt+9 ’ == right-alt+0 ¼ == right-alt+6 ½ == right-alt+7 ¾ == right-alt+8 × == right-alt+= ÷ == right-alt+shift+= ¶ == right-alt+; ° == right-alt+shift+; ´ == right-alt+' ¨ == right-alt+shift+'

Things to Be Aware Of

As advantageous as they are, they come with troubles. For example, to type a ', you will actually need to type two spaces to get a space. Press the apostrophe key and nothing happens. Press space and it appears, but to get your space, you need to press the space again. If you type fast and use quotes or apostrophes or tildes, this could have a detrimental effect on your typing as words run together. For example:

<pre>The çlass'is going to start soon!</pre>

See what I mean? Press the apostrophe followed by a c and you get ç instead of 'c. And notice the "lass'is"?

It may seem like a headache, but once you're aware, then you're not freaking out that your computer is typing weird stuff on its own.