Holding keys down when you type tø dõ thîš

[ajo]

When you hold the keys down when you are typing you can bring up alternate characters using the arrows to select or just hitting the number that the character is on.

 

[Crosbie]

Yèh, thänkš. Yōü thîñk thætś çøõł œr sómęthìńg?

 

[cube]

I hope alt still works.

 

[udontno]

Glad to hear this... will come in handy when I'm typing Spanish papers!

 

[Julien]

Use [Show Keyboard Viewer] and hit [alt/option] to see what the keys are.

 

[ajo]

Yèh, thänkš. Yōü thîñk thætś çøõł œr sómęthìńg?

Just trying to be helpful in picking out sone features that could be useful. That is all!

 

[Julien]

Just trying to be helpful in picking out sone features that could be useful. That is all!

This has been in OS X for yearsssssss.

 

[jmmo20]

I wish I could turn this off. I can no longer keep holding down keys to get "thiiiiiiiiiiiis"

 

[applefan289]

Ÿëâh, thïß śúčkś.

 

[ajo]

This has been in OS X for yearsssssss.

Really. I've never noticed it before. Holding down the key always just repeated the letter for me...

 

[2499723]

Yeah, holding the keys down to get these character variants is new to me as well. I'm used to having to hold down OPTION-(Letter) to get these kinds of symbols. Glad to know this exists now. It is really something!

 

[palpatine]

osx (as far as i know) has always used the alt button and various combinations of keys to come up with different diacriticals. ios has the same feature described here--holding down the characters to engage this option. HOWEVER, bluetooth keyboard with ios has an incomplete set. specifically, there does not appear to be the option for typing a solid line above characters. this is a real problem if you romanize japanese.

 

[shrx]

I don't have this feature. Do I have to enable it somewhere? If I press and hold down "o" nothing happens, it just writes a single o.

 

[RJCP]

I don't have this feature. Do I have to enable it somewhere? If I press and hold down "o" nothing happens, it just writes a single o.

I found out it doesn't work for portuguese keyboards. However, if you change your input method to English keyboard, it works.

Do report this to Apple as it isn't a very common problem. www.apple.com/feedback

 

[shrx]

interesting. I did have slovenian keyboard selected. I don't have an "english" option, but if I select British or U.S. or U.S. Extended keyboard if I press and hold "o" I get ooooooooo

edit: It seems that with British keyboard it's working, but only in certain applications. in textedit it works, in firefox it doesn't.

 

[negatlov]

yeah , really füń
.

 

[jbrucato]

It's like the ìPhone, but diffērent!

 

[petvas]

Actually this is a great feature and I use it all the time when I want to type special characters. I can't see why someone wouldn't like it.

 

[shrx]

I'd like it if it worked with all keyboard setups in all applications.

 

[sallylynn812]

I'm running lion and have to hit option to get special characters.

 

[spaceballl]

This is a good feature, but it's not that useful for me... I can no longer write boooooooo or reeeeaaalllly or heeeellllllloooo without hitting the keys oooooovvver and ooooover again - is there a way to switch the feature off?

 

[baryon]

Yes it's an amazing feature, but how do you add characters to the list? I mean, when I press and hold "O", I only get 8 choices, when in Hungarian you have a lot more variations of the letter. Is there some kind of setting somewhere that lets you change the characters? Without changing the keyboard layout obviously!