Odd characters from keyboard (Ç, ü, à...)

Hi Barbara - Thanks for posting those. I use the Germanic ones fairly frequently and have a crib sheet. You can also get some of these by using the font "Symbol". That was a lot of typing for you to do! Puma

If use German marks (and others) you can indeed get them using the Edit, Insert, Symbol tools and then create macros using your F-keys for frequently used letters and marks. I do this often for French accent marks.
C

Puma said:

Hi Barbara - Thanks for posting those. I use the Germanic ones fairly frequently and have a crib sheet. You can also get some of these by using the font "Symbol". That was a lot of typing for you to do! Puma

Click to expand...

If you regularly use characters like these from a particular language, you can also download a keyboard -- usually for free -- which will create a lot of simple(r) shortcuts.

No German double-S? That's the one I need...

Oh wait, there it is, next to the Greek alpha and looking so much like a beta. ß.

Carry on.

It's called the ess-zett in German.

Character map has routes to all these, including Spanish diacriticals and French. You just have to know what character to invoke. I have most of the Spanish specials memorized by now.

BarbaraKE said:

I just thought some of you might find this useful, particularly working with foreign words. To get any of these characters, just hold down the 'alt' key, press the appropriate number on the numeric keypad (not the numbers across the top of the keyboard), then release the 'alt' key.

Click to expand...

é


Oooh, fun.

Barbara wrote: "Actually, I must correct myself. I have no idea if they work on Macs. I'd be interested if someone with a Mac tries it and lets me know if it works."

I use iMAC. The Microsoft Word for MAC has the same symbol tool as MSW for PC. Setting the F keys for macros is detailed in the help tool. If you use special letters or symbols these come in handy.

One cool thing we rarely discuss is the ornament feature. For those who don't recognize the term it's the design often found under chapter headings. I didn't know what these things were called until began playing in the deep end of the pool. You can mix and match them
to make various designs. Of course editors will hate you but it's still fun.
C

Didn't work on my mac ... aw.

Then again, Mac has a whole slew of other "shortcuts" for the keyboard to get special characters. Most of which include the ingenious apple button and the plus sign.

Usually I just use "Insert; Symbol". Less change of punching the wrong key that way.

Now that is interesting. I have the MSW 2004 for MAC. You?
C

eLfwriter said:

Didn't work on my mac ... aw.

Then again, Mac has a whole slew of other "shortcuts" for the keyboard to get special characters. Most of which include the ingenious apple button and the plus sign.

Usually I just use "Insert; Symbol". Less change of punching the wrong key that way.

Click to expand...

BarbaraKE said:

I just thought some of you might find this useful, particularly working with foreign words. To get any of these characters, just hold down the 'alt' key, press the appropriate number on the numeric keypad (not the numbers across the top of the keyboard), then release the 'alt' key.
...
alt 254 ■ alt 255
alt 256 Ā alt 257 ā

...

Click to expand...

Am I the only one who is surprised that these go past 255?

My laptop doesn't have the number pad, just the ones above the letters. Is there a way to do this without the number pad? Would make life easier since my novel uses diacritics for the Hungarian and Romanian names in it. For now I have to copy and paste my special letters.

Does it have the F1, F2, etc keys above the regular keys? These are the ones you can use to create a macro. This will put your special letter, word or even oft used phrase for as long as you need it. If you have multiple needs you can use many F keys.
C

Tepelus said:

My laptop doesn't have the number pad, just the ones above the letters. Is there a way to do this without the number pad? Would make life easier since my novel uses diacritics for the Hungarian and Romanian names in it. For now I have to copy and paste my special letters.

Click to expand...

benbradley said:

Am I the only one who is surprised that these go past 255?

Click to expand...

Yes.

What's special about 255?

citymouse said:

Now that is interesting. I have the MSW 2004 for MAC. You?
C

Click to expand...

Mine's so old, I'm embarrassed to tell you. Suffice to say it has been in noble service for over ten years.

(I'm scared to put an actual date on it. That might make it angry. It's getting touchy in its old age.)

I know I've written something like this before in some tech thread here...

Willowmound said:

Yes.

What's special about 255?

Click to expand...

It's the maximum number that you can represent using eight bits. Computers were once limited to the characters on a US typewriter, and not even all of those - typewriters have 1/4 and 1/2 symbols which were not included in early character sets.

First there was Baudot, used in the original Teletype machines, then EBCDIC, but fortunately they were before my time. It was the 1960's that ASCII became a standard for computers that still lives on as part of current character sets. It consists of 128 "characters," only some being printable, the others being control characters (such as linefeed, carriage return and backspace).

It was a 7-bit code (2 to the 7th power results in 128 possible codes), but many computers (almost all of them nowadays) move data in multiples of 8 bits, so it was often "expanded" to 8 bits for "graphics" characters and other optional characters by computer, terminal and printer manufacturers, but these extended sets were different from manufacturer to manufacturer.

The original IBM PC was a remarkable success, so its extended 8-bit character set became a de-facto standard. That computer had a 'new' modifying key named alt, because IBM thought there weren't already enough key combinations with the shift and control keys and (at the time) ten function keys. One of the built-in functions of alt was to produce character codes. These likewise were limited to the number of characters available, 256. More recent expansion of "alt codes" apparently came along with Microsoft Windows, which only became popular many years after the original IBM PC came out, and has support for many character sets used in languages other than English.

Aren't you sorry you asked?

> ASCII is used on those woosie PCs

Mainframe computers, workstations and servers all have their power switches and reset buttons in the back of the machine. PCs are the only type of computer with power AND reset buttons conveniently positioned on the front panel. Go figure... |8-}

-cb

BarbaraKE said:

To get any of these characters, just hold down the 'alt' key, press the appropriate number on the numeric keypad (not the numbers across the top of the keyboard), then release the 'alt' key.


alt 140 î alt 141 ì
alt 142 Ä alt 143 Å
alt 144 É alt 145 æ
alt 146 Æ alt 147 ô
alt 148 ö alt 149 ò

Click to expand...

This did not work for me. I am using a Windows XP machine.
I opened a new MS Word document; I held down the Alt key,
then using the numeric keypad I typed 1 4 6, then I released the Alt key.
Nothing appeared on the page. I did not get the A E joined together.

Alvah

Alvah, try Alt + 0146. Mine doesn't insert the character without my typing the zero.