Umlauts
 

Excuse me guys, how do I type an umlaut in an Apple environment? I have gone to the Apple help but they don't do foreign...

French accents I have cracked but the two little dots, zilch.

I'm probably wrong but I thought they were dedicated characters in that you need the appropriate language font. But I am getting old.:sad:

try this thread for ideas

character map in mac? - macosx.com

option-u then u

Bush that is correct, thank you, it works for e , i and u but mysteriously not for o. I get a Skandanvian ø if I try option o, o

The plot thickens...

Ahhhhhhh SWMBO who is of the Tuetonic persuasion has just told me that you hold the o key down for a few seconds and a selection of tréma is offered.

Thanks for the replies.

Got umlauts a-plenty on this keyboard but no pound signs (pound as in sterling not weight !). Where it hiding ?

option-u, o.
option-3 for the pound sterling sign.

Adding Accent Marks in OS X Lion

OS X Lion supports the same method of adding diacritical marks to characters that is found in iOS devices......

1.Open your favorite text editor.

2.Start typing a word or sentence. When you get to a letter that needs an accent mark, continue to hold down the key for that character. After a short pause, a popover window will appear just above the character, displaying all the appropriate accent marks for that character.

3.You can select the accent mark you wish to use by either clicking on the glyph, or entering the number that displays just below each glyph.

It's the proverbial pain in the backside if you don't have the right keyboard to go along with the characters you want to type.

What I do is I always have a memory stick with me that contains a Word document with all the "special" characters I need. This enables me to do a "cut and paste" whenever necessary.

:ugh:

A poor workman always blames his tools.

I've got a UK keyboard on my computers, and yet have no problems whatsoever compiling lengthly missives in French should I feel the urge to do so and can type in French at the same rapid pace that I can English, and certainly a lot quicker than if you put me infront of an AZERTY keyboard.

Practice makes perfect, its simply a case of knowing the shortcuts. Its a lot easier on a mac (option + e, option + c etc. etc.) than on a PC where you have to do stupid tricks with alt and numbers.

Sure Chinese might be a different matter.... but here we're just talking about languages that use just a few extra diacritics on top of the standard alphabet.

So, how do you produce a capital Ä, Ö, or Ü on a UK keyboard?

The French tend not to put diacritics on capitals unless the orthographic value of doing so is particularly valuable (i.e its rare in common usage, except in a formal typographic environment where they may choose to be stricter about it). :cool:

Obviously I don't know about other languages, so I'll have a little dig around for you. Hopefully there's bound to be a way.

EDIT: Actually, its very easy.... its all about order.

You start with the normal technique.... so option+u.... then you release those keys.... then its simply shift+u .... Ü :cool:

Thanks, mixture. Shall try a.s.a.p.