French keyboard

SaligoBay · January 1, 2005

Retraining brain to touchtype on an AZERTY keyboard. Getting used to it (I can even get the circumflex and diaeresis/umlaut to work! ö ï ô â), but still forget that the numbers are uppercase.

But what are these symbols?

¤ µ § ^

And a trivial typing question. You do \^@]} with the right hand, but the only way to get them is to use AltGr, which is also on the right. Typing on QWERTY, you never have to do this, is it normal French touch-typing?

Alexis · January 1, 2005

You are cleverer than me then. Only once managed to get the ^^^¨¨¨ over a letter. I was drunk so can't remember what I did......

Bring back my trusty Adler. Where did my Olympia go?

The §§§ is for our German friends isn't it? ¤¤¤ is mathamatical and so is µµµµ. Alright, I'm guessing.... ^^ is the accent circumflex.

I use the numbers on the RH side.

If you could just explain how to back space as it were, I would be gratefull.

Teamedup · January 1, 2005

I must say that I find some of the things on a french keyboard very strange really. However, as I touch type, I rather like the layout of the letters themselves. What always amazes me is that I can't just do a . without having to press for upper casing. I don't seem to have some of the other things mentioned. There again this puter of mine is now five years old.

Will · January 1, 2005

TU - I have a . on the number keypad, to the right of the zero. I use that for numbers too like Alexis says which saves having to press the shift key, though I suppose if you use a laptop you don't get that little luxury.

SB - I tend to use the Alt and number combinations for things like umlauts and circumflexes which is easy if you can remember the number code - e.g. Alt/147 is ô, alt/132 is ä. Is there an easier way?

And I find in some programs like Word that if you have an opening bracket like [ or { you don't need to press the Alt Gr key for the corresponding closing bracket. [That doesn't work with this forum though) I only discovered that last week. Before then I used to use my right thumb for the Alt Gr, which I don't suppose is correct touch typing but it worked for me.

Don't know about the other symbols, but µ is the Greek letter mu which is used for 'micro' in SI measurements, e.g. µF, microfarad, the electrical unit for capacitance.

Dick Smith · January 1, 2005

I think § is some sort of proofing symbol. I'm puzzled by ‡ ‰ ª and ?/? (are they called ligatures?). I can do ? but I can't do the little gun-sight thing.

January 1, 2005

To type the ^ or the ¨ over a letter press the ^ or ¨ and then the letter required

Ex ^ then a gives â

My ^ and ¨ are to the right of the p

Like TU I touchtype (don't think I would ever have had the patience to post on the forum otherwise) and find using the numberpad awkward in among letters. Igot used to the shift for the . quickly.

I used a cheap and nasty typing tutor, I think Dactylogiciel, to change from qwerty to azerty and it didn't take long - wouldn't recommend it for learning to touchtype from scratch though.

Teamedup · January 1, 2005

LOL Will, so do I, but that doesn't help when touch typing. One would have a theatrical flourish as one's arm flew out to the right everytime a . needed doing. I simply cannot imagine doing that.

What upsets my sister in law when she is here is that she uses the numbers from the top row quite happily and obivously needs to press upper case to do it on my azerty board. I would never do that if I had more than one number to type, for a series of numbers I always use the number pad.

Which brings me to the other question, since the first number keyboards in the 1960's they have always had 123 on the bottom row and the 789 on the top row, so why one earth did they do phones number pads the other way round?

January 1, 2005

I haven't got that sign of DickSmith's that looks like a percentage but it's called permille and used like percent, with a thousand instead of a hundred, so ten percent is a hundred permille. Never came across it in England.
In fact I haven't got any of his signs on my keyboard, but I don't know what the others mean anyway.

January 1, 2005

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/F

the fi/fl are f's linked with i and l, like the o and e in coeur - don't know how to type them though

Anton Redman · January 1, 2005

[quote]I think § is some sort of proofing symbol. I'm puzzled by ‡ ‰ ª and ?/? (are they called ligatures?). I can do ? but I can't do the little gun-sight thing.[/quote]

The 0/00 rune ( I could not spell symbol) is per thousand or permille as opposed to percent.

January 1, 2005

Thank you, that's much clearer than my explanation!

§ means section, for example:

Prenez votre livre page 20 § 2.
Pendant que je lisais le § 2 de mon livre...

I don't think that the ]}@ were part of the standard azerty keyboard before computers came along; they aren't in my typing tutor.

Alexis · January 1, 2005

ôôôööö I can't thank you enough Pucette. At last!

Are you sure that § isn't for German words? Schlo§ etc?

Mind you, I don't have an upside down ? like the Spaniards so perhaps my keyboard is just for the French and is not European.

January 1, 2005

Sorry, I know nothing about German! I can only tell you what Dactylogiciel told me, which is the above... hopefully someone knows more... I don't have an upside-down ? either.

Dick Smith · January 1, 2005

The German double-s is ß

§ for section makes sense as it is next to ¶ for paragraph.

¿When would you use „ ?

Teamedup · January 1, 2005

I've only ever seen upside down question marks at the beginning of a sentence in spannish........ does anyone else use it?

Tresco · January 1, 2005

aaaarrrgghhhhh!

But thank you all, and please continue, I will find this thread easier in a day or two, like a crossword you (I) just can't finish on the day.

tresco

January 1, 2005

I've never missed the upside down ? until today, I'm sure it's Spanish but I don't know much more Spanish than I do German... I don't have a paragraph sign either...

Wish someone would explain the ¤, I hadn't noticed it before, it's starting to bug me...

January 1, 2005

I think Dick's sign that looks like two plusses on top of each other is a double dagger... not quite sure what they are for, I think for when you've marked things with daggers and want something different... I haven't even got a single dagger...

Perhaps the funny little a can be used to create superscripts?

I'm going to dream about these ¤¤¤¤¤

Dick Smith · January 1, 2005

But what „ ? Or ? ?¡¡¡

SaligoBay · January 2, 2005

Dick, do you have some sort of magical pan-European keyboard or sumfink?

I have no paragraph sign, or upside down question marks, or a permille symbol.

Still don't know why there are two circumflexes. There's the normal one that goes above the letters, that's next to the P, but there's another one on the 9 key that doesn't go above letters, and just seems to be a symbol in its own right. ^^^^^^^^^

Handy to have the squared tho, 700m², and degrees, 10°C today.

I suspect it's that thing about standards, isn't is - the nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

January 2, 2005

Yes, I think Dick's keyboard must be special... I've seen those upside down apostrophes somewhere, perhaps the Spanish use them with the other upside down marks...

I haven't got any diamonds either.

I think the ^ on the 9 is a more modern use of the circumflex as it uses the alt gr key like @ and all those funny brackets, # and so on... don't know what but guess it all goes together

Suppose the same must be true of ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤

Perhaps we should ask under "computers & internet"...

Dick Smith · January 2, 2005

The Mac keyboard is different from the PC one (the main difference being that the @ sign is in a different place which causes problems in the immediate office/home interface) - I guess the clue is in having ?!

Incidentally, apart from being able to enter accents with at most two key presses (é for example is alt+e followed by e) we have a little doobry called the keyboard viewer, a small picture of the keyboard which changes to show what symbols you can get if you press the control and alt keys. You can then input from the mini-keyboard using the mouse. Is there such a thing in Windoze?

What does the key which is a square with a cross through it for? It's on the numeric keyboard and appears to do nothing.

Alexis · January 2, 2005

¤¤¤¤¤ looks like something you would find in an electrical wiring book. Perhaps they added it to the keyboard for all us renovators....

January 2, 2005

[quote]The Mac keyboard is different from the PC one (the main difference being that the @ sign is in a different place which causes problems in the immediate office/home interface) - I guess the clue is in ...[/quote]

Yes, there is a doobry (or do-berry as I call them) in Windows, the clavier visuel, under accessoires, accessibilité, in principle for those who are physically unable to use a keyboard.

é is just one key with azerty, the lower case of 2

What does the little square without a cross do? Don't they turn each other on and off? I have a number lock key on my number pad which can be used to move the cursor, inser, suppr &c instead of type numbers.

I also have a row across the very top, above the function keys, that I never touch; it includes a shopping trolley and a footballer.

French keyboard

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