I know there was a thread on this a couple of years ago (- I thought I kept a copy).
Now when I need it in a hurry ...

I have to write a letter in Italian - and what I'd really appreciate from anyone who knows is the keyboard 'shortcuts' for doing accents over vowels.

Many thanks to anyone who can help!

Steve

You need to find the Character Map (assuming you're using Windows). It's usually in the Programs>Accessories menu off the Start Window - you might want to create shortcut to get to it more easily some other way. What you do is highlight the character you want and then type in the coding it shows you - hold down the ALT key and type in the figure beginning 0... Thus ALT+0224 produces à. You might in time get to memorise them!

If you're a non-Windows operating system, it'll all be different, of course.

This has appeared in a table, in one form or another several times, but changes to the host software have rendered a lot of those old posts non-functioning.

This post, which appeared on http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34524073 looks to be generally correct - - but I am not sre if it will be correct when I cut and paste, so you might have to go "there" - -

================================

Author: justretired ([email protected])
Date: 08/25/2004, 11:13 am

Message: I found a file on entering accented character in Windows based systems:

On Windows systems, there actually are two slightly different ways of getting each accented character. These work in all programs.

In each case, hold down the <Alt> key, and while holding it down, type either the three-digit code or the four-digit code shown in the table below on the numeric keypad, and then release the <Alt> key. Actually, all the four-digit codes start with zero, but the zero must be typed for those codes. The three digits after a zero are interpreted differently than three digits without a zero. It is important to use the numeric keypad, not the numbers in the top row above the letter keys.

I think the three-digit codes come from the extended character set of the original IBM PC, and the four-digit codes come from the newer "ISO" character set used by Windows.

For some strange reason, there is not a four-digit version of the lower-case c with a cedilla.

If you copy the table below, paste it somewhere, and change to a fixed-width font such as "Courier New", the table elements will roughly line up (except Fodors seems to delete multiple spaces).

à 133 0224 á 160 0225 â 131 0226 ä 132 0228
è 138 0232 é 130 0233 ê 136 0234 ë 137 0235
ì 141 0236 í 161 0237 î 140 0238 ï 139 0239
ò 149 0242 ó 162 0243 ô 147 0244 ö 148 0246
ù 151 0249 ú 163 0250 û 150 0244 ü 129 0252
ç 135 Ç 128 0199
ñ 164 0241 Ñ 165 0209
? 168 0191 ! 173 0209

I tried looking up the "character map" in Windows Help, but couldn't find it. As a general rule, I find Help from Microsoft to be useless. They keep changing the names of things. For instance, in Windows XP, they now use "My Network Places" for what they used to call "Network Neighborhood". They then remove the older name from their Help files, so you can't find it. And you don't know the new name, so you can't find it either. Then the Help function doesn't look up multi-word phrases, which is utterly primitive. If you enter "Network Neighborhood", it's interpreted as "Network" OR "Neighborhood". But Microsoft always names things with multiword phrases, like "My Network Places". I've never seen any other major software manufacturer with a search function as horrible as Microsoft's.

- Larry

===========================

Best wishes,

Rex

Italian uses accents?

Steve: If you still have the same e-mail address I'll e-mail it to you, since Fodors sometimes messes up the accents. I'll also post it here later, but will e-mail it first so you'll get it soon. (Have to get ready for work.)

>Italian uses accents?<

ditto.

Here below is the incomplete list that I use myself. Next time Fodors "improves" the site, this post may make no sense, because often the diacritical marks are affected when it makes changes in the way the site functions. I e-mailed you links to more complete lists from another forum. If you don't get them, let me know, and I'll send them a different way, later.


133 à
131 â
132 ä
160 á
138 è
130 é
144 É
136 ê
137 ë
140 î
141 ì
139 ï
149 ò
147 ô
148 ö
162 ó
150 û
151 ù
163 ú
164 ñ
165 Ñ
135 ç
128 Ç
145 æ
146 Æ
168 ?
155 ?
156 £
0200 È
129 ü
0254 þ
0200 È
0128 €

Hopscotch and Ira, I was wondering, too.

But a quick look on www.corriere.it (newspaper Corriere della sera) proved yes, there are accents in Italian, e.g. unità

There's a much easier way for just an accent. You press down the control key, and at the same time press down the key just left of the 1 on the top row. When you release those two keys, then type the vowel you want the accent on. And there it will be.

Larry: I also couldn't find useful info from the MS "help." I first got a list of these codes on Fodros, then picked up others on other Internet boards and found some on my own.

There's a good thread on the Francophile forum that lists the 3- and 4- digit codes for various characters. I'll post a link to the first post of the thread, and you can find the rest. Some people say it's easier to re-set your keyboard to some international setting, but they never post instructions for using it, so I'm happy sticking with the codes, since I don't write in Italian or French every day.

You could do what I've noticed in some Italian texts, which is to simply type an apostrophe after the vowel to signify the accent. Not always that elegant, but it seems quite common, and it's a way round the complicated codes.

E.g. è = e', dovrà = dovra', caffè = caffe'

(you can see a longer example on this site: http://www.caffe.it/caffe.cfm?id=3 )

Here's the first of several posts listing the codes to be combined with ALT. This first post lists the 4-digit codes. If you go to this post, and then proceed through the whole thread, you'll also find a list of the 3-digit codes and other info as well.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/PBPro...ges?msg=3389.1

Thank you, viennese.

Steve James: See my post above. For typing in Italian, which is what you asked about, that's all you need. For other language marks you need the more detailed keystrokes.

Molto grazie to everyone who replied. I really appreciate the help.

I've just tried them all on Hotmail - which is where I want to use them.
6 out of 10 work fine

But unfortunately i,o, I and U won't work with those codes
Alt + 141
Alt + 149
Alt + 0204
Alt + 0217

Is this a Hotmail problem?
Does anyone have a solution?

Thanks again to anyone who can help.

Steve

P.S. Carol - my old e-mail address has died now - but thanks for posting your list and the link above. Tanti saluti.

I'm at work, so can't check into this thoroughly at the moment, but did you try both methods of getting this? Is your Numlock lit up? Try posting on the Francophile forum. someone there may have a solution. There are also some I can't get SOMETIMES, but other times I can, and I can't understand why.

Thanks Carol Numlock! I knew there was an easy solution ...

Funny thing was ... the others posted OK without Numlock. Go figure ...

Molto grazie
Steve

Aha, Steve! Now I know you didn't read to the end that Francophile forum thread I posted above. Just a few weeks ago I posted there to say that I could no longer type some of the letters with the codes. Someone posted back asking whether my numlock was on, and sure enough it wasn't. I got my very first kitten in July, and strange things happen to the computer when she tip toes over the keyboard or gives herself a backrub against the monitor's knobs. (I suspect she's looking for a "chat" room.) My dog never does things like that!

Does anyone know how to type the "s" with the cedille under it and the "g" with the little cup over it, using the alt+digits method? Those are necessary letters in Turkish, distinct from the "s" and "g" without the marks. I need them in order to type some words and places names correctly. (I don't know more than about 20 words of Turkish, but I'd like to type things corectly if I write about my trip or things I learned.)

Here's my way of inserting symbols, including accent marks, on Word:
1. Click on "insert"
2. Click on "symbol"
3. Select font (usually normal text)
4. Select subset (go with default Latin unless it doesn't have what you want--then work your way through the options)
5. Click on the symbol you want
6. Click on insert
7. Close.

The letter comes with the accent so you don't have to do it in two steps. Hope this helps.