Rocket Spanish Community

¿ Yo tengo una pregunta? Who on here types using Spanish Characters? you know … these characters ¡¿áéóú etc. You can accomplish this by using the U.S. International keyboard layout.

I was wondering how many of you would use a small piece of software that created a small “always on top” dialog box that allowed you to just point and click on the specail character you needed.

That character would then be automatically populated into whatever you were working on. This would eliminate the need to memorize the keystroke combinations on the keyboard layout.

Please post some comments with your thoughts.

Cory Hughes
http://www.AccessToSpanish.com
http://www.SpanishLearningBlog.com

Hola, Cory. I've replied to another message about typing Spanish characters here: http://www.rocketlanguages.com/spanish/bb/viewtopic.php?t=165
As I point out there, I don't use a different keyboard; I've simply memorized the ALT + 4 digit combinations for the relatively few Spanish keys I need:
e.g., ALT + 0233 produces é, ALT + 0241 = ñ, etc. I find I can do this pretty easily by now, so I haven't felt the need for another method.

On my laptop, however, where it's not so easy to use this method, I use a freeware program call AllChars, which is probably even easier to use than ALT+4. In the URL I provided above, you can find a link to information about ALT+4 and also a link to the AllChars program. The advantage of the ALT+4 method is that I can use it on any desktop computer--I don't have to have a special program or keyboard installed.

cchughes: Your idea sounds really good to me. I've tried the ALT + method suggested by nohablo, but it does not work for me. However, the other suggestion made by nohablo (AllChars) works well. Claude

When using Word, I've just created short cuts where "alt ?" will give me an upside down question mark, "alt n" and n with a tidle, etc. Unfortunately, while easy to set up in Word, it doesn't carry over to your email or websites. When you first use one of these Spanish characters, insert it as a symbol, and while doing so, create the short cut.

ivanlare wrote:When using Word, I've just created short cuts where "alt ?" will give me an upside down question mark, "alt n" and n with a tidle, etc. Unfortunately, while easy to set up in Word, it doesn't carry over to your email or websites. When you first use one of these Spanish characters, insert it as a symbol, and while doing so, create the short cut.

Welcome to the forum! Your method is clever, but it sounds like a lot of work to go through for something that will work in just one program (Word). It would probably take someone a lot less time to download and install AllChars, which can be used in all programs--email, websites, Word, etc.

Hi Guys

All of the above is a solution, however, I also found all of it being a hassle, and not natural.
So, I bought myself a $15 Spanish USB keyboard...configured my system/setup and now I just change between English keyboard and Spanish keyboard with a single click.

The only problem I have with it is that my English keyboard is a Microsoft Natural keyboard, where I can type on really fast, and My Spanish one is a Dell ( standard ) and I have to learn this keyboard, but that was a choice I made before I bought .

I should have done that 2 years ago

Antonio