How do i type special characters?

[FuturDreamz]

On my Mac if I wanted to type "è" I just type option+e to get the little tick thingy with a highlight field then e again to to "è". On Windows the only way i've found how to do that is to bring up the character map, which is a bit of a pain when you just want to use the keyboard.
help?

 

[Capt.Jack Sparrow]

Hi Mate,

You might wanna look this article Keyboard Shortcuts for special characters

Hope this helps,
Captain

 

[Cato]

On my Mac if I wanted to type "è" I just type option+e to get the little tick thingy with a highlight field then e again to to "è". On Windows the only way i've found how to do that is to bring up the character map, which is a bit of a pain when you just want to use the keyboard.
help?

I use this PDF minimized to the side. Faster for me, anyway.

 

[FuturDreamz]

On my Mac if I wanted to type "è" I just type option+e to get the little tick thingy with a highlight field then e again to to "è". On Windows the only way i've found how to do that is to bring up the character map, which is a bit of a pain when you just want to use the keyboard.
help?

I use this PDF minimized to the side. Faster for me, anyway.

yeah, faster than Fn+numlock-alt+0232-Fn+numlock but not as fast as alt+e-e
Why do they have to make letters that are common usage so complicated? I mean, Have the Microsoft programmers never eaten an éclair in a café with their fiancé?
sure, ☺ is right there at alt+1, but have you ever seen even a web article that had a ☺ sitting smack dab in the middle of it?

 

[FuturDreamz]

found something that may be able to do that here, but it would be nice to have simple character shortcuts built in.
now I just need to type `+e+return to get é.

 

[Cato]

"Have the Microsoft programmers never eaten an éclair in a café with their fiancé?"

LOL. Probably not.

They say you have to work for the good things, but some things are not that good to have to work that hard. Hope you find something that helps.

 

[WindowsStar]

Hi Mate,

You might wanna look this article Keyboard Shortcuts for special characters

Hope this helps,
Captain

Awesome so see someone knows about those keyboard tricks...Added some REP.

 

[smsff7]

On my Mac if I wanted to type "è" I just type option+e to get the little tick thingy with a highlight field then e again to to "è". On Windows the only way i've found how to do that is to bring up the character map, which is a bit of a pain when you just want to use the keyboard.
help?

I use this PDF minimized to the side. Faster for me, anyway.

yeah, faster than Fn+numlock-alt+0232-Fn+numlock but not as fast as alt+e-e
Why do they have to make letters that are common usage so complicated? I mean, Have the Microsoft programmers never eaten an éclair in a café with their fiancé?
sure, ☺ is right there at alt+1, but have you ever seen even a web article that had a ☺ sitting smack dab in the middle of it?

Because I think Microsoft wants to do away with such BS

éclair=eclair
café=cafe
fiancé=fiance

Why dose the e need the special little mark on top? é? I for one would not have any prob seeing that bit of stupidity removed from written English

back on topic: Just get a cheat sheet till you memories with windows way of doing it

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

BTW smsff7 - not everyone on this Forum has English as their first Language -- you might not like special symbols in English --but in other Languages these are necessary and often work to make the letter they are added to equivalent to a different letter.

Perhaps THESE days we could design a unique symbol for each sound in each Language -- but that would not be worth the re-design effort or costs in all current equipment to say nothing of confusion in the interim period.

To the OP

Do you have Word

If so go to Insert symbol -- you can then make a file or whatever and then just cut and paste the relevant symbol into your application.


It also gives you the Ascii code if you want to type directly.

Enc screenshot.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[TimStitt]

As everyone has pretty much covered all the standard stuff, I just wanted to add that when I was learning Chinese I downloaded a pinyin IME. This allowed me to type the word normally on an English keyboard and it would work out if the word required macron's, umlauts, or what-ever accents and add them automatically.

This was useful for me because 4 out of every 5 letters required an accent when writing in Pinyin. So changing to another IME was useful when I needed to type a whole lot of these at once.

 

[smsff7]

Hi there

BTW smsff7 - not everyone on this Forum has English as their first Language -- you might not like special symbols in English --but in other Languages these are necessary and often work to make the letter they are added to equivalent to a different letter.

Perhaps THESE days we could design a unique symbol for each sound in each Language -- but that would not be worth the re-design effort or costs in all current equipment to say nothing of confusion in the interim period.

To the OP

Do you have Word

If so go to Insert symbol -- you can then make a file or whatever and then just cut and paste the relevant symbol into your application.


It also gives you the Ascii code if you want to type directly.

Enc screenshot.

Cheers
jimbo

Yeah your right...I guess I should not be posting at 4AM anymore

 

[FuturDreamz]

yeah and it seems that the ° symbol and the ™ symbols also need to be accessed via the character map, and the tm symbol requires a lot of scrolling to find.

 

[seekermeister]

Type charmap in the Start Menu search window, and right click it and send it to Desktop. Then drag the shortcut to the Quick Launch, and it always near at hand. Since I don't use it too often, I keep it among the hidden items.

 

[TimStitt]

You can use the shortcut keys to bring up ™ and °, providing that you have a numeric keypad on the right of your keyboard. (Some laptops need numlock turned on for this to work, and some just don't support it)
For ™ hold down ALT and press 0,1,5,3 (then release ALT). When you open CHARMAP you can see the ALT code in the bottom right.

™ = ALT+0153
° = ALT+0176

 

[FuturDreamz]

You can use the shortcut keys to bring up ™ and °, providing that you have a numeric keypad on the right of your keyboard. (Some laptops need numlock turned on for this to work, and some just don't support it)
For ™ hold down ALT and press 0,1,5,3 (then release ALT). When you open CHARMAP you can see the ALT code in the bottom right.

™ = ALT+0153
° = ALT+0176

like I said, Texter does this in less steps.
Windows default way on my condensed keyboard: fn+numlock, alt+0153, fn+numlock
texter with my settings: `tm
I still wished that Windows had easy character access like Mac built-in. With the mac I just type: alt+e, e, then I get é.
just an annoyance technically, a feature request in reality.

 

[ceasaro]

Use the Ctrl-key on windows 7

I was also looking voor an easy way to type special character and the ALT-key codes don't work quick and also the character map is not the way to go.

I tried out some possiblities and figured out that you can compose special character with the Ctrl-key. (like composing keys on a linux system). But sadly is looks like it's only working on microsoft office

To type é do the following: pressdown the Ctrl-key (keep it pressed) and then press de single qoute ('). Release the keys and now type de (e). Et voilà there is the é.

Here's a list of compositions:
Ctrl+' e = é
Ctrl+` e = è
Ctrl+: e = ë ( Ctrl+Shift+; )
Ctrl+^ a = â ( Ctrl+Shift+6 )
Ctrl+, c = ç
Ctrl+, C = Ç
Ctrl+@, a = å ( Ctrl+Shift+2 )

etc.

You can ofcourse change the e with an a,o,i or wathever letter you wan't to use to type the accent with it.

 

[ceasaro]

On my Mac if I wanted to type "è" I just type option+e to get the little tick thingy with a highlight field then e again to to "è". On Windows the only way i've found how to do that is to bring up the character map, which is a bit of a pain when you just want to use the keyboard.
help?

I was also looking voor an easy way to type special character and the ALT-key codes don't work quick and also the character map is not the way to go.

I tried out some possiblities and figured out that you can compose special character with the Ctrl-key. (like composing keys on a linux system). But sadly is looks like it's only working on microsoft office :-(.

To type é do the following: pressdown the Ctrl-key (keep it pressed) and then press de single qoute ('). Release the keys and now type de (e). Et voilà there is the é.

Here's a list of compositions:
Ctrl+' e = é
Ctrl+` e = è
Ctrl+: e = ë ( Ctrl+Shift+; )
Ctrl+^ a = â ( Ctrl+Shift+6 )
Ctrl+, c = ç
Ctrl+, C = Ç
Ctrl+@, a = å ( Ctrl+Shift+2 )

etc.

You can ofcourse change the e with an a,o,i or wathever letter you wan't to use to type the accent with it.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Just discovered that IE10 - at least on Windows 8 - will automatically add the thingy to words that need them, like éclair or café.

Voila doesn't do it though. but fiancé does.

 

[Tipiford]

I've always used Alt 130 which produces é