Quick Tip

095-2010
 

Multi-Language Keyboard

If you have the need to type anything in a foreign language which has accents and other strange-looking characters, and you only have a US keyboard, your life used to be miserable. You used to have to do one of the following:

·     ignore the special characters

·     memorize unintuitive keyboard "shortcuts" such as Alt+0128

·     go letter-hunting with the Character Map in Windows or Word

·     install Windows keyboard layouts which have the nasty side effect of interfering with your ability to type normal letters

·     buy and install third-party text input software

TIP: Go to www.typeit.org

Now, through the miracles of Unicode and JavaScript, you can just navigate to this site, type whatever you need to type in a text box, and then paste it wherever you need it — into your word processor, e-mail message, etc. You can type foreign characters by clicking buttons or by pressing intuitive keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Letter) that don't require you to grow additional fingers and don't block normal letters.

Note: Content was taken from Smart Computing Magazine (Feb 2010, page 44) and the web site typeit.org.