Typing and Spell Checking Foreign Languages on Any Keyboard – Spanish, French, Creole, Portuguese, German, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew (Part 1)
Originally published in South Florida Writers Association's Author's Voice
by David Frost
Although this article mentions the US English International Keyboard, a UK Extended Keyboard can be added, too.
A
handful of very simple adjustments to your operating system, taking
just a few minutes, will enable you to type accents and letters which
are missing on a standard U.S. English keyboard, and you can even use
different alphabets. By downloading extra software, you can also
write in various languages inside your web browser and have the
spelling automatically checked as you compose a message.
The
basic adjustments to your system don't require any extra software,
not even for Greek (Ελληνικά).
For languages written from right to left, such as Arabic
(الْعَرَبيّة),
Hebrew (עִבְרִית)
and Yiddish (ייִדיש),
you may need the software CD that came with the computer, or which
you used to install the system. Your computer prompts you when you
have to insert the CD. Once you do this the letters will appear from
right to left as you type them, and the Arabic letters will be joined
together correctly if necessary.
Extra
software for spell checking, which is not part of the operating
system, can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet. This is
open-source software, and it is absolutely legal to copy it. In fact
copying is encouraged to aid distribution.
The
changes that you make needn't be permanent, and are completely
reversible. Once you've made the necessary adjustments you can swap
from one language to another with one or two clicks on your mouse.
The process varies from one operating system to another, and as most
computers come with one of the recent Microsoft systems already
installed, let's start with Windows.
Windows
XP
The
reason that I'm describing the process for XP, rather than Vista, is
that I bought a laptop with Vista installed, and had so many problems
that I removed it from my new computer and installed XP. Older
versions of programs that I'd bought, such as Norton AntiVirus and
Nero, wouldn't work with Vista, and backups of files that I'd stored
on CDs couldn't be copied onto the new computer using Vista if there
was a folder within a folder.
I
understand that some of these problems have now been corrected by
Microsoft, but I'm sticking with XP, and my next computer will either
be an Apple Mac (my wife already has an ultra-lightweight MacBook
Air) or a computer sold with the Linux operating system preinstalled,
available from companies such as Dell, HP, Acer and Asus, the latter
a mini-notebook costing just $300, and including wi-fi.
Adding
the U.S. International Keyboard in Windows
Computers
sold in the U.S.A. usually have the standard U.S. English keyboard,
which lacks accents used in Spanish, French, Portuguese, German and
other European languages, and Haitian Creole. The solution is to add
a U.S. International virtual
keyboard. You don't
need to change the physical
keyboard. These are the steps:
- First it's always a good idea to create a system restoration point before making changes to your computer's operating system or installing new software, but this isn't essential.
- If you want to do this, click on Start, then Programs, Accessories, System Tools and finally Restore System. Choose Create Restoration Point and follow the instructions. (Please note that my system is in Spanish, so these are my translations into English, which may not be exactly what you see on your screen.)
- To install an extra virtual keyboard, first click on Start, then Settings (if necessary – this depends on the configuration of XP that you are using), then Control Panel.
- Next click on Regional and Language Options.
- Then click on the Languages tab at the top and afterwards on Details.
- You will now see those languages and keyboards which are already installed, almost certainly just U.S. English, and below the language the standard U.S. English keyboard. Click on Add, and a small window will appear.
- If the language is already U.S. International, leave it alone. Otherwise, click on the arrow to the right and chose U.S. International from the drop-down menu, or simply U.S. English if the former isn't available. Then select the keyboard by clicking on the arrow just below. For the keyboard you must choose U.S. International.
- Finally click on OK to close the smaller of the two windows, and you should see U.S. English with the U.S. International keyboard. If not, click on cancel and try again, as you've almost certainly made a mistake.
- When U.S. English plus the U.S. International keyboard is showing, click on OK to close the smaller of the two windows, and then on apply and/or OK to close the Regional and Language Options window.
- You should now see a button with the letters EN at the right-hand side of the bar at the bottom of your main computer screen. Click on the letters EN to choose the U.S. International keyboard. If you don't see the EN button, restart your computer. When the computer restarts it should be there. If the EN button still doesn't appear, then open a word processing program and see if that works. This shouldn't be necessary, but Windows can sometimes be temperamental, even when you've done everything right.
Typing
Spanish Accents and Characters Using the U.S. International Keyboard
in Windows
Now,
here's the interesting bit. Open whatever word processing program
you're using, for example Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.
I've
being using the latter for years, as it's free open-source software
and I've had problems in the past with Microsoft Office. Also,
OpenOffice spell-checking dictionaries can be downloaded for most
languages that you're likely to want, plus some you can perhaps
easily do without, for example Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan,
Galician, Kurdish, Luxembourgois, Ndebele, Xhosa and even Esperanto.
In
theory you should be able to change to the U.S. International virtual
keyboard by clicking on the EN button at any time, but I've
discovered that sometimes you have to open your word processing
program first. Why? Just yet another Windows quirk.
These
are the key combinations that you are most likely to want:
- The tilde – ' (apostrophe, just to the left of the Enter key) then the letter, to give á, é, í, ó or ú.
- The tilde on capitals – ' (apostrophe, just to the left of the Enter key) then Shift plus the letter, to give Á, É, Í, Ó or Ú.
- The eñe – Shift plus the ~ key (at the top left, just to the left of the exclamation mark) then the n key, to give ñ.
- The capital eñe – Shift plus the ~ key (at the top left, just to the left of the exclamation mark) then Shift plus the n key, to give Ñ.
- Upside down question mark – Ctrl, Alt and / (slash, just to the left of the right-hand Shift key) all together, to give ¿.
- Upside down exclamation mark – Ctrl, Alt and the figure 1 (or in other words Ctrl, Alt and !, at the top left) all together to give ¡.
- The euro symbol – Ctrl, Alt and the figure 5 all together, to give €.
- Spanish quotation marks – Ctrl, Alt and [ or ] (square parentheses) all together, to give « or ».
- Diaeresis, or two dots over a vowel, usually the letter u – Shift plus ¨ (just to the left of the Enter key) then the letter, to give ü. (Also works for other vowels and with Shift plus the letter for capitals.)
Typing
Accents and Characters for Other Languages Using the U.S.
International Keyboard in Windows
- The British pound sign (British English isn't another language, but you must have heard the saying, “two peoples separated by a common language”) – Ctrl, Alt and Shift plus the figure 4 all together, to give £.
- Cedilla – Ctrl, Alt and , (comma) all together, to give ç.
- Uppercase cedilla – Ctrl, Alt, Shift and , (comma) all four keys together, to give Ç.
- German double s, or Eszett (used only according to spelling rules, which are too complicated to mention here) – Ctrl, Alt and the letter s all together, to give ß.
- The German Umlaut, or two dots over a vowel – Shift plus ¨ (just to the left of the Enter key) then the letter, to give ä, ö or ü, or Shift plus ¨ then Shift plus the letter, to give Ä, Ö or Ü. (Also works for other vowels.)
- Portuguese tilde (~) on the letters a and o – Shift plus the ~ key (at the top left, just to the left of the exclamation mark) then the letter, to give ã or õ. On capitals, Shift plus the ~ key then Shift plus the letter, to give à or Õ. (These combinations you might have guessed, knowing those for the eñe.)
- There are lots more. Either experiment or search in the Internet. For characters that you use only occasionally, consider the option of inserting them as a symbol from drop-down menus and pop-up windows, instead of from the keyboard.
Adding
a Spanish Keyboard or a Keyboard for Another Language in Windows
If
you are using a computer with a Spanish keyboard (I'm talking about
the hardware now) but your Windows operating system is in English,
you can add a virtual Spanish keyboard just by following the
instructions above for U.S. International, but selecting whichever
version of Spanish you prefer plus a Spanish keyboard.
A
button with the letters ES should appear at the right-hand side of
the bar at the bottom of your main screen.
When
you type on your Spanish keyboard, the correct letters should now
appear, including ñ, ¿,¡, ª, etc. The same
applies for other languages.
To
be continued
If
anything I've described doesn't work for you (everything does for me)
or if you discover any typos (very likely in an article such as this)
please feel free to email me at:
mdavidfrost@mail.com
(that's
right, just mail).
