crépuscule Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 I have made up a table of ALT key combinations to make it easier to type in French special characters e.g. ALT+130 = é. I have included ALT+148 = ö and ALT+129 = ü but, on second thoughts, I don't think there are any French words that contain these characters. Can anyone confirm this or suggest words that do have these characters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opalienne Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Can't think of any for the u (though you never know when you might want to use a German word) but for the o, there's trapezoide (sorry, can't work out how to put the symbol in), hemorrhoid, and probably others too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony the Turner Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loiseau Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 [quote]...for the o, there's trapezoide (sorry, can't work out how to put the symbol in), hemorrhoid, and probably others too. [/quote]Sorry to be nit-picking here, but think actually the two dots would come on the *second* of the vowels, so: trapézoïde, Noël, haïr and so on...Angela Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fulcrum Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 [quote user="crépuscule"]I have made up a table of ALT key combinations to make it easier to type in French special characters e.g. ALT+130 = é. I have included ALT+148 = ö and ALT+129 = ü but, on second thoughts, I don't think there are any French words that contain these characters. Can anyone confirm this or suggest words that do have these characters?[/quote]I like the idea of making up a table because I can never remember the ALT characters. However because I'm lazy I went to look on the web and found this site. I hope it saves you a bit of time.http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htmIt should also be pointed out these combinations only work if you use the number pad at the right of the keyboard and not the numbers along the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esperaza Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 For a UK English keyboard: Character set Alt + 133 for àAlt + 131 for âAlt + 135 for çAlt + 128 for ÇAlt + 138 for èAlt + 130 for éAlt + 136 for êAlt + 144 for ÉAlt + 137 for ëAlt + 139 for ïAlt + 140 for îAlt + 147 for ôAlt + 150 for ûAlt + 151 for ùAlt + 129 for üAlt + 164 for ñAlt + Ctrl + 4 = € à, è, ì, ò, ù À, È, Ì, Ò, Ù CTRL+`(ACCENT-GRAVE), the letter á, é, í, ó, ú, ýÁ, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ý CTRL+'(APOSTROPHE), the letter â, ê, î, ô, ûÂ, Ê, Î, Ô, Û CTRL+SHIFT+^ (CARET), the letter ã, ñ, õÃ, Ñ, Õ CTRL+SHIFT+~(TILDE), the letter ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ÿ Ä, Ë, Ï, Ö, Ü, Ÿ CTRL+SHIFT+ COLON), the letter å, Å CTRL+SHIFT+@, a or Aæ, Æ CTRL+SHIFT+&, a or Aœ, Œ CTRL+SHIFT+&, o or Oç, Ç CTRL+, (COMMA), c or Cð, Ð CTRL+' (APOSTROPHE), d or Dø, Ø CTRL+/, o or O¿ ALT+CTRL+SHIFT+?¡ ALT+CTRL+SHIFT+!ß CTRL+SHIFT+&, S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opalienne Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 [quote user="Loiseau"][quote]...for the o, there's trapezoide (sorry, can't work out how to put the symbol in), hemorrhoid, and probably others too. [/quote]Sorry to be nit-picking here, but think actually the two dots would come on the *second* of the vowels, so: trapézoïde, Noël, haïr and so on...Angela [/quote]You are not nit-picking! You are quite right..... If I'd worked out how to put them in I would have seen that for myself! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PossumGirl Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 If you have a PC running WIndoze, you can simply set it up with the English International Keyboard, this allows you to have all the accent characters simply by using the quotation key followed by the appropriate vowel, i.e. áéëçû, etc., etc. To get the € you simply hit the right ALT key with the 5 key on the main keyboard.To set up the international keyboard on XP go to Control Panel, choose Date, Time, Lanugage settings, choose Add Other Language, choose the Language tab, then under Text Services and Input Languages click on the "details" button. You can choose the keyboard you want from there. You can also install multiple keyboards if you want, then switch between them. However, I find the international option is the simplest.PG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crépuscule Posted March 30, 2006 Author Share Posted March 30, 2006 I haven't tried resetting the keyboard so I'm not saying that using the ALT keys is better but I've got used to it now so will probably continue with it. For French, most of the time you only need 4 combinations:ALT+130éALT+133àALT+135çALT+138èwhich I can just about remember but I have a crib sheet which sits under my monitor that I refer to for the others:ALT+131âALT+136êALT+137ëALT+139ïALT+140îALT+147ôALT+150ûALT+151ùThat's really all you need as you can get away without using special characters with capital letters.Thanks to everyone for the suggestions for words with ë and ï but so far none with ö or ü! After a quick flick through my Robert, the best I can offer is führer which probably doesn't count. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crépuscule Posted March 30, 2006 Author Share Posted March 30, 2006 If you look in Wikipedia (which I should have done first!) under "French Language", there is a section:diaeresis or tréma (ë, ï, ü): Indicates that a vowel is to be pronounced separately from the preceding one: naïve, Noël. Diaeresis on ÿ only occurs in some proper names (such as l'Haÿ-les-Roses) and in modern editions of old French texts. Since the 1990 orthographic rectifications, the diaeresis in words containing guë (such as aiguë or ciguë) should be moved onto the u: aigüe, cigüe. Words coming from German retain the old Umlaut if applicable but uses French pronunciation, such as kärcher(trade mark of a pressure washer). There is no mention of ö which suggests it does not occur. The suggested switch from guë to güe is not reflected in my Robert dictionary (published in 1998). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerise Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 You know, the easiest thing is just to buy a French keyboard, not expensive. You soon get used to it and if you type quite a lot in French it makes life much easier. Maggi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 I agree, Maggi. I bought a French keyboard and was surprised by how quickly I got used to it.The problem now comes the odd time that I need to use my wife's laptop, which has a good old QWERTY keyboard. I find it hard to use now, and keep on hitting Q instead of A etc!Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Missy Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Or why not visit your friendly computer!!Go to Start>>All Programs>>Accessories>>System Tools>>Character Map.There, a bewildering array of characters awaits you for fun and adventure!! From latin to greek to cyrillic to arab to hebrew (depending on how advanced one's own machine is) and many more other little less used characters such as 'copyright' 'registerd mark' 'centigrade' 'micron' 'macro' 'pilcrow' '¿' exponents for maths and algebra ........ Oooh the fun is only just starting!... Go on adventure and explore the map at a friendly computer near you !!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderhorse Posted May 13, 2006 Share Posted May 13, 2006 Depending how 4rsed you want to be, I wrote a series of macros for Word. The macro is saved in Normal.dot. Now if I want a particular accented character I just click a button at the top of the page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronan Posted May 14, 2006 Share Posted May 14, 2006 And for Mac users around here:Press Alt + "something" then the letter you want to modify.The something is:` for a gravee for an accutei for a circonflexeu for "deux points"so for exampleé: press Alt+e then eë: press Alt+u then eOnly exeptions is for the ç where Alt-c is all you need, Likewise for œ (Alt+q).This is system wide... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judith Posted May 15, 2006 Share Posted May 15, 2006 RonanThank you from a <> frustrated Mac user - now I can type my letters with accents - without having to recourse to typing them in word and using symbol. Mind you, the spell checking is useful esp if you change the language to Fr first!.PS - when in France I have to use hubby's French keyboard - on a pc - which is a bit like changing between LHD and RHD cars - very confusing! Also as an almost touch typist for almost 40 years, changing keyboards is not quite so easy - its alright for those "one-finger" typists - but more difficult for the professionals amongst us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronan Posted May 15, 2006 Share Posted May 15, 2006 Most welcome, Judith!Spell-checker is also a blessing! Especially when used in the text field in web browser!You might also like to check the "Keyboard Viewer" as it might be useful if you switch keyboard often: activate it on the Input Menu tab in Control Panel, it'll show the keyboard (and more importantly the effect of Shift/Tab/) for whichever keyboard language you have active at the time... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crépuscule Posted December 5, 2006 Author Share Posted December 5, 2006 I have just found a word containing ü - un capharnaüm = a shambles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ernie Posted December 10, 2006 Share Posted December 10, 2006 [quote user="crépuscule"]I have just found a word containing ü - un capharnaüm = a shambles.[/quote]Crépuscule - brilliant !For the record, if you have Word, you can go to "Insert" then go to "symbol" and a whole panoply of characters is available for you to choose.My way of dealing with this problem is to keep a file on my desktop with useful characters. I go to it and cut and paste as this is usually the quickest way to get it right. This is because I have an American keyboard on my laptop and cannot use the alt + combinations unfortunately as I do not know how to get them up and running and Compaq isn't telling !! Pity, as I know most of them by heart.Nice thead anyway.Ernie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassis Posted December 10, 2006 Share Posted December 10, 2006 Have you seen Will's incredibly simple solution to this character stuff on a similar thread? It's a lot more recent than May! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted December 10, 2006 Share Posted December 10, 2006 To do this the easy way on the Mac, go to System Preferences, then International, Input Menu and check Character Palette. It will then appear in your menu bar, and you can pull it down, choose from a very wide range of accented letters and symbols, and insert them into your text.Sadly this ☹ software doesn't recognise them all...☠➽☃ even Braille is possible on a Mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cat Posted December 11, 2006 Share Posted December 11, 2006 [quote user="Cassis"]Have you seen Will's incredibly simple solution to this character stuff on a similar thread? It's a lot more recent than May![/quote]I saw it when he posted it Cassis, downloaded it straight away, and have been using it ever since. Once again, thank you Will.To save anyone searching, the relevant post is here:http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/758786/ShowPost.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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