in8snotes

International Characters in Mac OS X

from http://webct.pcc.edu/support/langmac.html

Some language classes at Portland Community College make use of WebCT to compliment their course. WebCT provides excellent tools for online communication. The mail tool, discussion tool, and chat tool can all be used by students and faculty to communicate using what they've learned in class.

One problem that these courses encounter is related to some of the characters in different languages that don't show up on our keyboards. Not to fear, there are ways around this using keyboard shortcuts and using tools built in to the Mac OS.
Keyboard Shortcuts

There are many keyboard shortcuts on the mac for inserting characters. To insert a character with an accent, type the key combination then the letter you want to insert.

For example, if you want to type á, you would press option-e (option and E at the same time), then press the A key.
For French

* ê -- accent circumflex (option-i)
* ü -- accent tréma (option-u)
* á,é,í -- accent acute (option-e)
* à,è,ì -- accent grave (option-`)
* ç -- accent cedilla (option-c)

For German

* ü -- umlaut (option-u)
* ß -- esset (option-s)

For Spanish

* á,é,í -- accent (option-e)
* ñ -- accent tilde (option-n)
* ü -- umlaut (option-u)
* ¿ -- upside-down questionmark (option-shift-/ )
* ¡ -- upside-down exclamation (option-1)

For Other

* ø -- option-o
* è -- option-`
* ñ -- option-n
* å -- option-a
* ü -- option-u
* ç -- option-c

To apply an accent to a capital letter, also hold down the shift key.

Last saved: 03/15/2008
Links: /computers/mac / intl-char.txt