--- Forwarded Message from "John Robin ALLEN" <[log in to unmask]> ---

>From: "John Robin ALLEN" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: "Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum"    <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: An easy way to get foreign accents on the PC
>Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 06:19:26 -0600
>Importance: Normal
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>

------------------
So much has already been written to this list about the problem of accents
on a PC, one hesitates to add anything more. Nonetheless, there is a free
and very easy solution to most such problems for those who use MS Word 97 on
a PC: use the AutoCorrect feature to reprogram the keyboard. For clarity in
the following description (since some browsers do not handle upper-level
characters easily), I won't use accented characters below but will simply
describe the letters to which I refer.
      I used to type on IBM Selectric typewriter with a French/English golf
ball. That put the "e acute" to the right of the "p" key, where one usually
sees the left square bracket. I now use AutoCorrect to do the same thing on
the computer. AutoCorrect lets one remap any key to be whatever one wishes.
As a professor of French, I use "e acute" more often than use a square
bracket, but I still need the latter.
     To reprogram a keyboard as I did, just click on Tools, then
AutoCorrect, then tell it to replace "[" with "e acute". (One types an
"e-acute" by holding down the "Alt" key and typing "130" on the numeric
keypad. The accented letter appears when you let go of the "Alt" key. Other
accented characters have different numbers that one can find by
experimentation or by looking at charts published with almost every book on
computing or word processing.)
      One then programs other keys as needed. I follow the keyboard schema
that I used to have with the Selectric typewriter, to make the "{"
(shift-left bracket) be an e-grave, the "=" be an "a grave", and the "+" a
"c cedilla". (I usually then use the Alt-Key method for the other accents,
but one could easily program other keys such as "]", "}", "\", and "|" to do
other letters.)
     The advantage of this method is that one can program keys as one
wishes, to make most keys behave as one expects them to do while still
having quick access to whatever accents one needs the most.
     If one then really needs a "[" left square bracket instead of an "e
acute", one still presses the same key to get the "e acute". Then, before
typing anything else, one presses the backspace. The "e acute" will change
into the normal "[" character. The same is true with all the other
reprogrammed keys.
     I am not a Mac user, but I would be interested to know whether this
method also works with MS Word/98 on a Mac. Does anyone else know?
     --john robin

John Robin Allen
St. John's College
University of Manitoba

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