In Mac OS X, how can I type foreign language characters?
In Mac OS X, for some diacritics and accent marks, you may
need to install additional fonts, but you can produce some of the most
common foreign language characters using the Option key:
| Keystroke | Character |
|---|---|
Option-e [letter] |
acute (e.g., á) |
Option-` [letter] |
grave (e.g., è) |
Option-i [letter] |
circumflex (e.g., î ) |
Option-u [letter] |
umlaut (e.g., ï ) |
Option-q |
oe ligature ( œ ) |
Option-c |
cedilla ( ç ) |
Option-n n |
the Spanish "enyay" ( ñ ) |
Option-Shift-/ (forward slash) |
upside-down question mark ( ¿ ) |
Option-1 (the number 1) |
upside-down exclamation point ( ¡ ) |
In OS X 10.3.x, you can also use the Keyboard Viewer; in OS X 10.2.x and earlier, you can use Key Caps.
To access the Keyboard Viewer in OS X 10.3.x, follow these steps:
- From the Apple menu, select
System Preferences....
- In System Preferences, from the
Viewmenu, selectInternational.
- Select the
Input Menutab, and then check the box next toKeyboard Viewer. A flag should appear in the menu bar in the upper right corner of your screen. The type of flag you see depends on the language you selected to be your default.
- Click the flag icon in the menu bar, and from the menu that drops
down, select
Show Keyboard Viewer.
To access Key Caps in OS X 10.2.x and earlier, open a
Finder window and navigate to the Utilities
folder, which is inside the Applications folder.
The Keyboard Viewer or Key Caps window
contains a virtual keyboard that shows the characters associated with
different keys. You can also see what characters are created when you
hold down modifier keys like Option, Shift,
and Cmd. To see the effect using different
fonts, in the Keyboard Viewer window, select the font
from the pop-up menu next to "Font:"; in Key Caps, select your
preferred font from the Font menu.
Many fonts in OS X contain special characters for additional
diacritics. To access these special characters, within the application
you are currently using, open the Font panel (usually via a Show
Fonts option from a menu in your menubar), and in the window that
opens, look for the gear widget button. This button has an image of a
small round gear with a downward-pointing triangle next to it. Click
this button, and from the menu that appears, select
Characters... .
You may also download a utility from Ergonis Software called PopChar X, which displays a drop-down sheet containing all of the current font's characters when you click an icon in the menu bar. For more information about PopChar X, visit the following web site:
http://www.macility.com/products/popcharx/Also see:
- What is the Dvorak keyboard layout, and how do I configure my computer to use it?
- What are character sets?
- In Mac OS X, how do I install fonts?
Last modified on December 13, 2005.
