Canadian Multilingual on an English US keyboard

[ronaldo13]

Hi, i'm relatively new to the mac world. I played a couple of times with a macbook and I'd really like to buy one. I do not want to invest a lot of money and I want to buy a refurb from the apple store.

The only problem is that I need to use the Canadian Multilingual (CSA) layout and the refurbs only come with English US (US) keyboard (confirmed this by calling apple store). I know that I can switch the keyboard layout within OSX, but on the CSA keyboard there's one extra key (Ù - the one between Left shift and Z key). I found a way to live without that Ù key using dead keys to get the Ù character.

However, Ù and ~ seems to be the same key between the two layouts, and I really cannot live without "/, \ and |". That extra key is giving me headaches... what will I get on a US keyboard (with CSA layout) when I press the real ~ key (the one to the left of key "1"). Will I get Ù, or /?

Thanks for your help.

I may not be a frequent poster, but I'm a frequent reader!

 

[mkrishnan]

Erm, I'm not completely sure I understand you, but let me try:

1) If you're using the standard US-EN layout:

The tilde key makes ` without a modifier and ~ with shift.
Option-` modifies the next character to have that accent: Ù (opt-` followed by shift-u).

2) If you're using the CSA layout on an American keyboard, then you get:

The tilde key without modifier: ù; with shift, Ù.

Let me see if I can one step farther and show you some more of what the US keyboard will do for you with CSA (hang on).

Edit: I cannot do that. But I can say that ù, ç, à, è, é are all on the keyboard without modifiers. The left square bracket key makes the accent that is used in î, and modifies the next character... ê. Shift and the same key does the modifier to make chars like ë and option and that key makes the accent in è. You must use option-shift-: to make the other accent that is found in é.

Does that help?

 

[ronaldo13]

Thanks for the reply and sorry for the complexity of my post.

Your post answers a good portion of my question. In short, I wanted to know that the "tilde" key would output on an US keyboard with CSA layout.

With the real physical CSA keyboard "Ù" key missing, and the tilde outputting the "Ù" on the US keyboard with CSA layout, it seems that the missing key is the important one that does "/, | or \". Are you able to get these symbols with the CSA layout on your US keyboard?

Thanks

 

[mkrishnan]

You must use the option key to get those three characters, Ronaldo.

It looks like, when you use CSA on a US keyboard, you get those characters in this way:

With the tilde key (opt-`) makes \
So does the key with single and double quotes on it: opt-' also makes \
The same key that has the / on it makes that character with Opt-/
The minus key makes the pipe character Opt-(-) makes |

 

[ronaldo13]

Your second posts fully answers my (vague) question. Using the option key for these 3 symbols is not as bad as having to use options to get accents (there's more é in french than / ).

I think i'll give those refurbs mac a try!

Thanks for your help and the quickness of your answers.