Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

[help] easy way to type french in english ibook?

S

steelfist

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 10, 2005
577
0
i heard that mac OSX has a cool feature: to type symbols that you can't type in windows, and in windows, you have to go to the symbol section to search for the symbol and then cut and paste. how do you do it?

i need to type in "sa" which looks like a C with a little s below it. how? how do you type the normal english letters but also add french attributes like e with a dash over it?

i need to know these tricks and other french typing tips for my french 2 class. i want to make use of the features in OSX that windows dosen't have. :D
 
From Apple's Support site:


To use the Character Palette:

Open the application you want to type in, and place the insertion point where you want the special character or symbol to appear.

Choose Edit > Special Characters to open the Character Palette, or click the Input menu icon in the menu bar and choose Show Character Palette.

Choose the type of characters you want to see from the View pop-up menu at the top of the Character Palette window.

If you don't see the View pop-up menu, click the button in the upper-right corner of the Character Palette to show the top portion of the window. Click this button again to hide the top portion of the window.

Click an item in the list on the left to see the characters that are available in each category.

Double-click the character or symbol in the right column that you want to insert into your document.

You can also select the character and click Insert. To see more options for each character, such as the variations in glyphs for some characters, click the Character Info triangle and then the Font Variation triangle at the bottom of the Character Palette window.
Click to expand...


Of course, it's actually much easier to do than the description makes out and you'll soon learn what each individual character's key code is. Also, sorry but I'm not sure this will work in Office (hopefully it will but I can't check now). If it doesn't you may want to use iWork or the free app called TextEdit that came with the Mac. I hope this helps. :)
 
This is all based on the US keyboard, but I think it's same for the UK English keboard.

To type the ç in français, you press option-c. To type the accent in this character: é, you press option-e, and then the character you want it on (so option-e, e -> é). To get this accent è, you press option-`, and then the character you want it on. To get this accent: ê, you press option-i and then the character. All eminently googleable stuff. ;) Hope it helps, though.

IIRC, French uses these quotes: «Vous avez raison.» You can get them on the US keyboard by Option-\ and Option-| (same key, with and without shift).
 
Try option-C (aka alt-C) for ç and shift-option-C for Ç.

Works on my (Norwegian) keyboard, might be the same on an English one... :)

Edit: Beaten by two - 2 - minutes. Embarrassing... :eek: ...oh, well I'll live... ;) Note-to-self: Open fewer tabs...
 
mkrishnan said:
...All eminently googleable stuff.
Click to expand...


I haven't had any luck finding an official list of these though. I don't suppose you'd know of one? It'd be really nice to have a comprehensive list of shortcuts and all I found in the Apple Support site was that link I posted. :(

If you know where one is, that'd be awesome, thanks. :)
 
mad jew said:
Thanks for the link. Yeah, I wonder why Apple insist on leading users down the Character Palette path. It's much more convoluted IMO. :confused:
Click to expand...

Sadly, I think it's because people are used to going hunting in Windows so it's easier for switchers to have a single place to go.

The other thing is that most people are 'mousers' rather than keyboard shortcut junkies. Colleagues in the office can't recall Ctrl C or Ctrl V (it's a Windows office) for copy and paste so they'd have no chance of remembering accents. Having said that, I've just remembered the Windows keyboard shortcut so I can type Exposé properly at work... ;)
 
mad jew said:
Isn't that something like #1425362KL52 then e! I hate the Windows "shortcuts".
Click to expand...

If it has been that, I wouldn't have remembered it. You just have to hold down the 'Alt Gr' key and the 'e' key to get a é. Of course, that doesn't work to get grave accents, circumflexes, umlauts et al. But it does work on áéóú

But doing 'Alt Gr' and 'i' seems to open up 'help' for a program that I don't actually have open... :confused:
 
Applespider said:
If it has been that, I wouldn't have remembered it. You just have to hold down the 'Alt Gr' key and the 'e' key to get a é. Of course, that doesn't work to get grave accents, circumflexes, umlauts et al. But it does work on áéóú....
Click to expand...

In windows you can Ctrl+, , c for c with a 'cydilic (I think it's called) and Alt Gr+u will give you ú Ctrl+: , u will give you a u with two dots over it which is used in German I think.

There's quite a few variations on these shortcuts which I used to use in another job with lots of European correspondence. If you've got access to MS Word they're all listed if you go to 'Sybols' in the 'Insert' menu. I'm pretty sure the same shortcuts'll work in all MS Office products.
 
mpw said:
There's quite a few variations on these shortcuts which I used to use in another job with lots of European correspondence. If you've got access to MS Word they're all listed if you go to 'Sybols' in the 'Insert' menu. I'm pretty sure the same shortcuts'll work in all MS Office products.
Click to expand...

I knew they were hidden in there somewhere but yes, using Word's Symbol is what I usually end up doing for formal writing. On the Mac, I tend to use them even in casual emails since they're only an option key away rather than recalling different modifiers etc. It does illustrate the point though that it's easier for Apple to suggest going to the character palette than listing them all. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back