Typing special characters?

[Billsotx]

Is there a way to type Spanish, those letters with the accent marks, without reconfiguring the PC keyboard to that language?

[abn]

Bill,

I used to have a text file that contained all of those special characters, and when I needed one I'd cut and paste it. However, I finally gave that method up as too slow.

I know you mentioned that you don't want to reconfigure your keyboard, but honestly, I followed the directions below and really liked the ease of toggling between the English (U.S.) and U.S. International keyboards. On XP, you simply click an icon to select your keyboard configuration, and pick U.S. International when you're ready for special characters. Examples: type apostrophe, then a for á and Right-ALT+/ for ¿. Very easy and quick. When done, just reselect English (U.S.) to get your old keyboard settings back.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306560

Maybe worth a shot? Good luck, -Alex

[Billsotx]

Thanks Alex, I'll give that a try.

[Billsotx]

Alex,

¿Did I mention that I got it up and running? . . . é á ñ . . . many thanks, ~Bill

Edited January 18, 2007 by Billsotx

[abn]

¡Felicitaciones!

[Johanna]

In XP, the Character Chart is kinda hidden. Start> All Programs> Accessories> System Tools> Character Map. I right clicked on it and sent it to "shortcut on my desktop", then dragged it to my Quick Launch for convenience a long time ago. Since the Char Map does give you the alt codes, it's easy to memorize the ones you use the most frequently. For example, Alt and 0169 make a copyright symbol: ©

If I had to constantly switch between languages I think I would buy specific language keyboards and just swap them as needed. I know I can type anything on this standard American keyboard, but remembering all the tricks, codes and key combinations for the different characters in different languages is more clutter than my brain can absorb.

Characters is a list of the alt codes. WebSlang is a list of acronyms, chat slang, txt msg abbreviations & emoticons. After the leather related pages on my website, they are the two most visited pages on my site. The hits come from all over the world via search engines, and people obviously bookmark the page. So I figured that if the pages were going to be looked at that much, might as well put some advertising on it. (It's the American way!) Leatherworker.net hasn't gotten any hits from these pages. Go figure. Some of you may have noticed that I'm a compulsive list maker by now. If you have suggestions, corrections, updates etc, please let me know so I can fix my lists. If anyone wants to share a list, leatherwise or otherwise, I'd be tickled. I love lists, don't you?

Johanna

[candyleather]

Is there a way to type Spanish, those letters with the accent marks, without reconfiguring the PC keyboard to that language?

If you want write in spanish in Internet you can write without accents because everybody understand that the english keyboards have not accents or ñ (you can write nh). I have my keyboard and Word configured for write in spanish and I can write in english too, and any indoeuropean lenguage. You can write in spanish with a reconfigured keyboard but it can be possible that if you send by mail that text or you publish the text in a web you can not look the accents or the ñ.

[Billsotx]

Johanna,

Thanks for these additional tips. The character thing you posted has also helped with some coding w/o having to do all that clicking to get a symbol.

I was writing a document when I asked about the Spanish and I just used Alex's suggestions. It worked ok. Well back to FP; I'm gettin' there girl. Talk about duh ... lol, but it's coming along.

later,

Bill