Technical Question

[waitingman]

How does one put accent marks on letters (umlauts, cedilias, accents grave & acute etc...) for the plethora of foreign words I'd love to use in my entries, but can't, due to an Anglo-centric keyboard??

Comments

[thebellman.livejournal.com]

Assuming you are using a version of windows: http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/391afa15-092b-4165-912d-5d628808b03a1033.mspx

although different programs under windows have alternate means as well.

A useful reference is this one: http://www.colby.edu/lrc/help/diacritics.html

Very loosely, doing it on windows requires putting your left elbow in your right ear, and hoping for the best. Doing it on the mac requires you to put your left elbow in your left ear, and waggling your fingers.

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

Okay... I've mucked around with various settings & dislocated my left shoulder trying to insert my elbow... Having failed at that, I've also printed out the HTML codes for accents & characters.

Et maintenant, j'espère le meilleur...

Et voila!! I'm now an HTML cunning linguist...

[unknownblogger.livejournal.com]

On Linux (or more generally, the X Window System) you just use the Compose key, which on a PC keyboard I usually set as Right Alt. Then Compose " a produces ä, Compose ' e produces é, etc. Schön. It's one of the things that I really miss when I have to work on Windows. I'm guessing you could develop a Windows input method that would do something like that, but I haven't come across it in my travels.