Spanish Character Keyboard??

Does anyone know how to get Spanish characters on my keyboard or purchase of an auxiliary Spanish only keyboard. ....recommendations? Tom

Hola Tom. There are a number of different approaches you can use. On a PC, holding down the ALT key and typing certain 3 or 4 digit numbers will give you all the Spanish characters without having to change your keyboard. That's what I do. ALT+0225 gives you á, ALT+0233 = é, ALT+0241=ñ, etc. You can find a lot more info here: __http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm__ If you want information about International and Spanish language keyboards, you can find it there, too. There's a link off the URL I just gave you, or you can go straight to it: __http://www.starr.net/is/type/kbh.html__ Finally, the Word Reference Forum had a discussion about all this. You can see it here: __http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=20801__ Espero que te ayude

Muchas Gracias "Nohablo", the quick reply is much appreciated. .....love the name Tom

A simple way to get áéíóú is to hold Alt Gr and type the vowel. Alan

[quo]*Quote from * Alan-LaCala A simple way to get áéíóú is to hold Alt Gr and type the vowel. [/quo] I wasn't even sure what Alt Gr referred to, so I googled it and found the following from Microsoft: "The ALT GR key is on the right side of the keyboard on some non-U.S. keyboard layouts." So those of us with US keyboards are probably out of luck when it comes to Alt Gr. However, there are lots of alternatives available to us. For more info, see the website I referred to in an earlier message: *__http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm__* I now use the ALT+4 method (described there) so often that I don't even have to think about it when I want to type español or sé or any other words containing Spanish characters. I've also learned recently about a piece of free software that I probably would use if I weren't so accustomed to ALT+4. It's called *AllChars* and can be found at *__http://allchars.zwolnet.com/introduction.html__*. It works very well. For example, to type é using AllChars, all you have to do is hit the CTL key and then 'e, either together or sequentially. It's even easier than ALT+4. I didn't switch to AllChars on my desktop mostly because I can use ALT+4 on any computer, not just on a computer that has AllChars installed. However, I plan to install it on my laptop, since using ALT+4 on a laptop is a little more complicated than on a desktop. If you haven't already found a method you like, give AllChars a try. It's free; if you don't like it, you can just remove it.

[quo]*Quote:* So those of us with US keyboards are probably out of luck when it comes to Alt Gr.[/quo] That is what comes with always wanting to do things differently. (Smiley) Alan

[quo]*Quote from * Tom Does anyone know how to get Spanish characters on my keyboard or purchase of an auxiliary Spanish only keyboard. ....recommendations? Tom[/quo] The *easiest* way, in my opinion, is to change your keyboard settings to US-International. (My mother tongue Afrikaans uses a lot of accent marks as well as as ^ & ".) This will make using special characters a breeze without having to remember special codes, although you will have to get used to put an extra space if you want to use a vowel after a punctation mark. Using this method you type the punctuation mark (it will look as if nothing happens) and then the vowel after which the correct accented character will appear. so ' + a = á ' + o = ó ~ + n = ñ etc. To type "E = " + space + E otherwise you'll end up with Ë! For the upside down characters this will not work, but you can hold CTRL & ALT whilst pressing either 1 (lower case of !) or / (the lower cases of ?). Once you've gotten used to the US-International keyboard layout, you can't think how you ever got by without it!

I agree with Johan1FS that the International Keyboard may be the best choice for people who type a lot in languages that require accents and other special keys. However, for those who type primarily in English, the International Keyboard may not be worth the extra effort of having to remember to hit the space bar almost every time you want to type a normal apostrophe or quotation mark (with the exception of a few common words like it's). That's the beauty of the free program *AllChars*, which I mentioned in my second message above. AllChars seems quite similar in its functioning to the International Keyboard, but it doesn't require you to do anything differently to type normal English. Instead, when you want to type, say, é or ñ, you just hit the CTL key and then 'e or ~n. Like the International Keyboard, AllChars uses easy to remember combinations. It's great that there are several methods to choose from, so each of us can pick the one that best meets our needs.

[quo]*Quote from * nohablo extra effort of having to remember to hit the space bar almost every time you want to type a normal apostrophe or quotation mark [/quo] Well, that's not quite the case :) ... you only have to remember the extra space if you wish to use a vowel after an accent or quote or n after ~ .... for the rest it is type away like normal. For most people that will be relatively infrequent because it mainly affects quoted sentences starting with A E I O U. I type a huge lot in 2 languages daily and I only get the situation at most 1 - 3 times a day... But, you're right ... just as in Windows there are many ways of achieving the same thing and one uses the one that works best for you.

Thanks very much for the clarification. I was basing my statement on the information contained here: *__http://www.starr.net/is/type/kbh.html__*. Among the things it says is the following: "Note that this maintains the "qwerty" layout. However, each modifier key ` ' " ~ ^ must be followed by pressing the space bar if it is actually intended. The system is smart enough to accept words requiring an apostrophe, such as it's, without the space bar." Obviously, it's better to get a real user's perspective.

I should also add that there's another quirk: whilst you do not have to press the space bar if you want to use quotes before non-vowels, you will not see the actual quote until you have pressed the non-vowel as it is waiting to determine whether to create a special character or not.