How To Type Symbols and more

[cmpm]

http://www.howtotype.net/

from freedownloadaday

[Curt]

I guess this must be for 'english' keyboards only ~ the hotkeys are not working as promised, on my setup.

[cmpm]

Maybe this site will help.
There are a few alternatives.

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codeint.html

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/charmap.html

[dantheman]

I do believe things work differently if your running from a notebook or desktop.
Shortcuts are much harder to find with a notebook.

[Stoic Joker]

I did a cheat sheet sort of page on my site awhile back, it's here if anyone can find it useful.

[SKesselman]

I guess this must be for 'english' keyboards only ~ the hotkeys are not working as promised, on my setup.

I have an english setup, but it's not working for me either  so far...

[SKesselman]

I did a cheat sheet sort of page on my site awhile back, it's here if anyone can find it useful.

It doesn't work on gmail, do you have to change modes or something to be typing in ASCII format?
Or maybe do you have to be using something like Outlook or Word?
I get so many of these symbols when my bf sends me a Word document from France that Word tries to go French.
But nothing seems to work in gmail.

[tranglos]

I have an english setup, but it's not working for me either   so far...

It does depend on system codepage - I'm getting Central European diacritic characters instead of Yen and Pound symbols.

But if you're not getting the right characters on an English system (Win-1252), are you typing the digits on the numeric keypad? THat's the only way to get the symbols. Note also that every code must have four digits. Shorter codes should be padded with zeros, so instead of Alt+12, you need to type Alt+0012.

Me, I'm using a bunch of text replacements defined in AHK. ;copy gives me ©,  ;tm gives me ™, ;reg gives me ®, ;eur gives me € etc. It's easier than remembering codes.

[SKesselman]

I have an english setup, but it's not working for me either   so far...

But if you're not getting the right characters on an English system (Win-1252), are you typing the digits on the numeric keypad? THat's the only way to get the symbols.

No. I guess that answers the, "but why would it be any different on a laptop" question.

Me, I'm using a bunch of text replacements defined in AHK. ;copy gives me ©,  ;tm gives me ™, ;reg gives me ®, ;eur gives me € etc. It's easier than remembering codes.

How nice, for you (jealous) (pout) 

[tranglos]

No. I guess that answers the, "but why would it be any different on a laptop" question.

It's one of the things I've never bothered to discover, but there just has to be a way to fake numeric keypad presses on laptops. Maybe with the Fn key (or whatever special key your laptop has)? But it's never going to be as convenient typing with the top-row digits. Or you could buy one of those attachable USB keypads, if you had other good uses for it.

Me, I'm using a bunch of text replacements defined in AHK. ;copy gives me ©,  ;tm gives me ™, ;reg gives me ®, ;eur gives me € etc. It's easier than remembering codes.

How nice, for you (jealous) (pout)  ;)

Grab AutoHotkey from here, install it to start with Windows, then create an autohotkey.ahk script that contains the following:

:o:;eur::€
:o:;tm::™
:o:;reg::®
:o:;copy::©
:o:;deg::°

...and so on. AutoHotkey can do plenty of wonders, and this might just be a good excuse to jump in.

Btw, the semicolon in front of all my abbreviations is optional. I use it to make sure no regular typing will trigger these expansions, and semicolon is easy to press. You can use whatever prefix you want, or omit it entirely.

(I must say, I don't like AHK's scripting syntax, never did. It put me off installing it for a good while, and now every time I want to add something, I always have to look up the particulars in the help file. But the help file is great, with lots of examples, and the results are really worth the effort.)

[cyberdiva]

There's a terrific little free program called AllChars that I used to use on my laptop to type French and Spanish characters, since it's a bit of a hassle to set my laptop up to use certain keys as a numeric keypad. (A numeric keypad is needed for the ALT+4 method, which I use on my desktop.)  With AllChars, you hit and release the CTL key and then type 'e to produce é, while hitting the CTL key and then ?? will yield ¿, etc.  For some reason, I'm now having trouble getting AllChars to work, but most people have no problem with it.  It's free, open source, and quite easy to learn.  It is now under the aegis of SourceForge, who are more or less continuing development.  For more information or to download, see http://allchars.zwolnet.com/.

[SKesselman]

Grab AutoHotkey from here, install it to start with Windows, then create an autohotkey.ahk script that contains the following:

I can't write a script! But if I was forced to learn how, do you think ahk would be a suitable (easy) place to start?

[cranioscopical]

Grab AutoHotkey from here, install it to start with Windows, then create an autohotkey.ahk script that contains the following:

I can't write a script! But if I was forced to learn how, do you think ahk would be a suitable (easy) place to start?

Apart from a great support forum it has a terrific help file, stuffed with useful examples. It's worth giving it try just for the entertainment value!

[SKesselman]

Grab AutoHotkey from here, install it to start with Windows, then create an autohotkey.ahk script that contains the following:

I can't write a script! But if I was forced to learn how, do you think ahk would be a suitable (easy) place to start?

Apart from a great support forum it has a terrific help file, stuffed with useful examples. It's worth giving it try just for the entertainment value!

Mine or yours?  

[cranioscopical]

It's worth giving it try just for the entertainment value!

Mine or yours?  

We won't know until you try.
I couldn't write decent code before finding AHK.
Since then I've written a program to rule the world.
What's more, it runs with just two key strokes!
Unfortunately, by some oversight, the first one disables the keyboard.
YMMV

[Hirudin]

I also use a cheat sheet. I pin it to my start menu. It doesn't have everything, but it's covered me so far.

[Curt]

... I've written a program to rule the world.
What's more, it runs with just two key strokes!
Unfortunately, by some oversight, the first one disables the keyboard.

 

[Curt]

Let's not forget Eric's free EUP: http://EasyUnicodePaster.wikidot.com/

- though some people have reported it wouldn't work as expected, while others are saying it gives no problems.

[tranglos]

I can't write a script! But if I was forced to learn how, do you think ahk would be a suitable (easy) place to start?

Yes you can, it's just a text file

If you look at my examples above, and you already know what they do, you can probably figure out how to add your own expansions. They look a bit weird, because the syntax of AHK scripts is weird, but it is also quite poweful, and can do much more than substituting text. Start with the help file and examples therein, and you can always ask questions here. (There is also a support forum on the AHK website.

AHK is not the easiest scripting language to work with. If your purpose was just to learn scripting in general, you might be better off with something like JavaScript. However, AHK is a direct solution to your need for entering special characters, while JavaScript won't help there. The documentation that comes with AHK is really good, probably much more informative and detailed than in average free software (including anything I've ever written )

[CleverCat]

I use the FARR plugin - Character Table!

[cmpm]

http://vulpeculox.net/ax/

for English keyboards I believe, not sure

via- http://www.freedownloadaday.com/2010/12/18/add-accents-easily-with-ax/

[Curt]

http://vulpeculox.net/ax/

for English keyboards I believe, not sure

- for any keyboard, I believe. And surprisingly easy to use:

[johnk]

http://vulpeculox.net/ax/

for English keyboards I believe, not sure

- for any keyboard, I believe. And surprisingly easy to use

I've been playing around with AX and the best thing about it is that you can create a custom set of changes that make the program do exactly what you want. By default it works in a single language of your choice, but with a custom set you can cover multiple languages. My set currently looks like this:

Custom=aàáâäåa AÀÁÂÄÅA BßB cçc CÇC eéèêëe EÉÊÈËE iîïíìi IÎÏÍÌI nñn oôöòo OÔÖÒO uûùúüu UÛÙÜU ?¿?

When you type a letter and press F8, AX cycles through the options in the order you have chosen. I've used AHK for this kind of thing in the past, but AX actually makes this very easy and quick. Good find.

[cyberdiva]

Belated thanks, cmpm, for the info about AX.  It seems to work the same way as the myKbd alternative keyboard I installed several years ago on my PalmTX, which has proved invaluable. 

I know all the ALT+4 codes I need for my desktop computer, but I think AX may replace AllChars on my netbook.  As others have pointed out, most notebooks and netbooks do have a numeric keypad that can be accessed with a function key, but it's a rather awkward way to get these characters, especially if you need them frequently (as I do when I write in bad Spanish).  AX looks very promising.  I haven't tried it out yet, but I will very soon.  Thanks also to Curt and johnk for offering more testamonials about this program.

[tranglos]

There's also Type Accents:



Not free, but very slick. Press a combination of modifier keys and the base (unaccented) letter you want. For instance, to type ë, ê, æ or € you may press Ctrl+Win+e. The window above will display, just choose the accented version you need.

Lots of languages and symbols are supported (in the higher editions; the basic edition supports only 1 language, I think).

The concept is really nice; I'd love to see a freeware clone.