Keyboard Help and Diacritics (Accents)

PC Diacritics

Select desired language using the blue symbol (EN) in the bottom right side of the toolbar.
To make any of these symbols Upper Case, add the Shift key.

Chinese

  • Open a Microsoft Word Document. This also works with Microsoft Excel and Power Point.
  • At the bottom right hand corner/top right hand corner, there is a blue box with the letters “EN” in it. Click on this button and a list of languages will appear. Click on “Chinese PRC.”
  • Now your computer is ready to type Chinese characters. This icon will appear next to the “EN” box.
  • In order to type characters, you will need to put in the pinyin for the character you want. Each time you type a syllable from pinyin, you will be given a list of Chinese characters that share the same syllable.
  • You have to click on that character you want or enter the number before the character you choose.
  • Below is what you will see if you type "zhong". If I enter 1 from the keyboard or use the mouse and click on the first character "中", that is how this character is entered here.

French
To create these diacritics you don’t have to change to French.

To produce, follow these steps:

à, è, ì, ò, ù –

  1. Type a ` ( ctrl + the accent grave key, located above the Tab key)
  2. Let go of the keys (don’t hold it down for step 3).
  3. Type the vowel over which you want the accent to appear.
  4. À, È , Ì, Ò, Ù – Hold the Shift key down in step 3 above.

á, é, í, ó, ú –

  1. Type a ‘ (the apostrophe).
  2. Let go of the key (don’t hold it down for step 3).
  3. Type the vowel over which you want the accent to appear.
  4. Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú – Hold the Shift key down in step 3 above.

â, ê, î, ô, û –

  1. Type a ^ (caret, Ctrl + Shift and the number 6 above the T & Y keys).
  2. Let go of the keys (don’t hold them down for step 3).
  3. Type the vowel over which you want the caret to appear.
  4. Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û – Hold the Shift key down in step 3 Above.

ç –

  1. Type a , (comma) +Ctrl
  2. Let go of the keys (don’t hold them down for step 3).
  3. Type c
  4. Ç Hold the Shift key down in step 3 above.

æ, œ –

  1. Hold down the Ctrl + Shift and type the & (ampersand)
  2. Let go of the keys
  3. Type the vowel a or o
  4. Æ, Œ Hold the Shift key down in step 3 above.

German
ä – right alt and the letter q
ü – right alt and the letter y
ö – right alt and the letter p
ß – right alt and the letter s

Japanese

  1. Notice the square, blue icon with EN in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
  2. Click this icon, and select Japanese.
  3. Select ‘Show Language Bar’, which will appear in the top, right corner of the screen
  4. To type in Japanese, click on the button with the ‘A’ (the icon that is furthest to the left on the tool bar), and click on hiragana. (Note: a simple key-stroke of alt-tilde will change the text inputting quickly from hiragana to English, and vice versa. Also, alt-shift will switch between locales e.g. switching from English to the Japanese settings)
  5. If the input mode is in hiragana and you wish to type in English, click on the same button as above (note however that the ‘A’ has now become an ‘あ’) and click on direct input.
  6. To actually type Japanese, simply input the Romanized version of what you wish to type.

Things to keep in mind when inputting in Japanese

  • The space bar acts as an indication that kanji or katakana are wanted instead of simply hiragana.
  • When you wish to input kanji enter the Romanized text first, hit space bar, and use the arrow keys to indicate the correct kanji you wish to use. Then hit either the right arrow key or enter.
  • When you wish to input katakana enter the Romanized text first, then simply hit F7, and enter.
  • When inputting both Japanese and English, the keystroke alt-tilde is immensely useful in switching between the two languages.
  • If you wish to enter the small つ, as in いって, type the first letter of the character directly following the つ twice. As in this example, after typing い, simply input t-t-e to make って.
  • Small や, ゆ, and よ are easy to enter, and can usually be done phonetically. じゃ, for example is simply ‘ja’; しょ is ‘sho’; にゅ, ‘nyu’.
  • The character を is inputted as ‘wo’.

Norwegian (Bokmal)

Press alt key and shift key at the same time before you begin typing. After you have pressed these the following following keys become a part of the Norwegian alphabet.

ø- ; (semi-colon)

æ- ' (apostrophe)

å- [ (left bracket)

Russian
The Russian alphabet will correspond to these letters on an English keyboard. Use Shift to make them uppercase.

Spanish
¿ – right alt and ?
¡ – right alt and 1
ñ – right alt and n
ç – right alt and ,
á, é, ó, ú – right alt and the vowel

Mac Diacritics

To make these characters Upper Case, add the Shift key.

à, è, ì, ò, ù – Option and `(above the tab button), then a vowel
á, é, í, ó, ú – Option and the letter e, then a vowel
â, ê, î, ô, û – Option and the letter i, then a vowel
ä, ë, ï, ö, ü – Option and the letter u, then a vowel

ñ - Option and the letter n, then n again
ç - Option and the letter c
ß – Option and the letter s
å – Option and the letter a
ø – Option and the letter o
æ - Option and ' (apostrophe)
œ - Option and the letter q

¿ – Option, shift and ?
¡ – Option and 1