French characters on e-mail

[banyuls diver]

When I write a word document I can use "symbols" to obtain French characters with accents such as acute, circumflex - but I don;t know how to invoke "symbols" when writing an e-mail with my qwerty keyboard. Can anyone offer any info regarding writing e-mails on a U.K. keyboard?

 

[Ysatis]

Hi, this is the way I use.

To type French accents on a PC, you can use ALT codes.

Hold down the ALT key, then on the numeric keypad type the three or four digits listed here. When you release the ALT key, the character will appear. You must type the numbers with the numeric keypad, not with the row of numbers across the top of your keyboard (which means that this is not the best way to type accents on a laptop - try another method for typing French accents).

Accent or Special Character		ALT +			ALT +
a with grave accent	à	133		À	0192
a with circumflex	â	131		Â	0194
a with tréma	ä	132		Ä	142
a e ligature	æ	145		Æ	146
c with cedilla	ç	135		Ç	128
e with acute accent	é	130		É	144
e with grave accent	è	138		È	0200
e with circumflex	ê	136		Ê	0202
e with tréma	ë	137		Ë	0203
i with circumflex	î	140		Î	0206
i with tréma	ï	139		Ï	0207
o with circumflex	ô	147		Ô	0212
o e ligature	œ	0156		Œ	0140
u with grave accent	ù	151		Ù	0217
u with circumflex	û	150		Û	0219
u with tréma	ü	129		Ü	154
French quotation marks	«	174		»	175
Euro symbol	€	0128

 

Hope this useful.

If pads is about she know a different way by downloading something onto your toolbar, I think.

Regards,

[Clair]

On Vista, go Start, All programs, Accessories, System tools, Character table,

or type Character table in the search box.

Right-click on it and Add to quick start toolbar.

[AnOther]

Another easier way [;-)]

[Pads]

I use the same as ernie , quick and easy to use and can be used with any programme

[NormanH]

Two other ways

1)

If you open a yahoo email with the address as yahoo.fr  (as opposed to yahoo.co.uk for example), the spellcheck will correct any missed accents.

You don't even need to put them in at the start...

I wrote this without accents, and yahoo corrected it:

"j'ai acheté une crème brûlée pour dessert"

2) If you use Firefox you can add a French Dictionary  from here 

This has a similar effect of automatic correction.

[mint]

Nice tip, Norman.

The avisoft "type French characters" prog doesn't work when I use my aol.com email address so I think I will set up a Yahoo.fr email as suggested by Norman.

[Weegie]

Unfortunately Avisoft doesn't work with Vista.  I did ask them at one time if they were intending to bring out a "fix" but the reply was that Vista was so different from previous versions of Windows that it would have been too big a task.

For Vista I use Lexicool - www.lexicool.com

[Will]

I would endorse what Weegie says about Lexicool. I particularly like the fact that, as well as working perfectly with Vista, the toolbars are available for various other foreign languages as well as French. The toolbars can be downloaded from http://www.lexicool.com/lexibar_special_keyboard_characters.asp

I also use the Alt/numeric keypad trick quite a lot, particularly for the few programs or web pages that do not work with Lexibar, but that gets a bit awkward when using a laptop.

One other tip is that if you just want the é, you can get it by pressing AltGr and E simultaneously. Similarly for á, ú, ó (should you ever need them) and €, which is AltGr 4.

 

[banyuls diver]

Merci pour ça!

[Madeira Jon]

If you use WORD just click INSERT then SYMBOLS

[AnOther]

Thank you Will, Lexibar was what I was actually looking for when I happened across the Avisoft tool.

[NormanH]

The Firefox French dictionary add-on works as a spell check for both webmail and Pop mail if you are using Thunderbird.

The advantage is that you don't need to type in any French accents.

You type the word in without, and if you have French enabled as the language option any words which need accents are underlined in red.

Click on them and the accented version replaces the original.

I use this even though I type on a French keyboard, in case of error.

Changing the language option back to English is simple.

I even use the British English add on, as I hate having words like colour or Theatre corrected by my spell check.

[gosub]

[quote user="Weegie"]Unfortunately Avisoft doesn't work with Vista.  I did ask them at one time if they were intending to bring out a "fix" but the reply was that Vista was so different from previous versions of Windows that it would have been too big a task.

[/quote]

I have it installed, and it works on my Vista laptop.

[Clair]

If you use Firefox dictionaries, I recommend this extension as a complement:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3414

[NormanH]

Thanks Clair.

Have installed it and will try.

[banyuls diver]

Madeira Jon - symbols are fine in a WORD document - but you can't access them for an e-mail. This was my problem. Have now added the Avistoft software and it works fine on my WINDOWS XP operating system.

[Weegie]

Weegie wrote:

Unfortunately Avisoft doesn't work with Vista.  I did ask them at one time if they were intending to bring out a "fix" but the reply was that Vista was so different from previous versions of Windows that it would have been too big a task.

I have it installed, and it works on my Vista laptop.

---

Les

Thanks Gosub.  Have just tried it and it works as you said.  I was still operating on this on their website:

"(VISTA  users: Microsoft has removed the

functionality in their new operating system 'Vista' that enabled keystrokes to

be sent to other applications. Sorry, but beyond my control. This utility

works fine on Windows XP, 2000, 98, ME. I will release a new tool shortly that

works around this limitation. Watch this space!)"

I find it a bit "slicker" than Lexicool although, as Will points out, Lexicool is useful for other languages.

Thanks for the update.[:)]

[mint]

Definitely easier to use than Lexicool and you don't have to change the font if you're using other than Times Roman.

However, I still seem unable to use it with my aol.com address.  Can use it fine elsewhere, even here on the forum.

It's very annoying.  I suppose I could type a word document and then send it over to email but what a kerfuffle!