# Codes des touches / accent shortcuts on a Mac?



## Alicia08

I have looked at this thread - http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=557434 - but the shortcut codes here for a Mac keypad simply do not work! I've tried all of them; e.g. for é - it says 'alt + e + e' - this produces: ´´ . For à, it says 'alt + ' + a' - this produces: æå !! None of the codes listed here work on my Mac / keypad (NB: I have Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4). Does anyone have any other links / lists of shortcut keys for a Mac keypad? I had pretty much memorised all of the Windows shortcuts; now I've bought this Mac I have to start all over again, & all I seem to find on the web is a lot of different information, none of which works.... Any help much appreciated!


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## jann

I'm sorry the info in our FR-EN accented characters post isn't working for you.  I'm not a Mac user myself, so I can't test it... but I suspect it's outdated.  There have been a lot of new operating systems released since we last updated the codes in that post.

May I suggest that you follow the advice on the Apple support website?  They're surely the most reliable source of up-to-date information about how to type accented characters.

Thanks for bringing the outdated information to our attention.  We'll try to get our FR-EN post updated.

Jann
Moderator


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## Egmont

The instructions given there are correct, but they are written in a confusing way.

Accented letters are produced on a Mac in two steps: conditioning the base letter to receive an accent, then typing the base letter itself.

To enter é, your first example, you first hold down the Option (or Alt, depending on your keyboard) key and press e. That does not display anything, but it conditions the next letter you enter to receive an acute accent (accent aigu). In the second step, press e, and you will get é. If, in the second step, you enter a letter that cannot receive an acute accent (it's only used in é in French, but other languages have characters such as á) then you will get the accent by itself followed by the unaccented letter. For example, if you press Option-e followed by s, where s cannot receive an acute accent, you will get ´s. 

The conditioning characters, which are always entered with the Option (Alt) key held down, are:
Acute accent, already used as an example: e
Grave accent: `
Circumflex accent: i
Umlaut: u
Tilde: n

It takes much less time to enter accented characters this way, after you have done it a few times, than it took you to read this post and try it.


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## Maître Capello

I've updated the shortcuts in the above-mentioned sticky thread to make them clearer (e.g., "Option-E, E" instead of "Option + E + E") and added a short explanation.


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## Alicia08

Thank you all. I am still a little confused however. What / where is this symbol?  ` ? It does not appear anywhere on the small Mac keypad that came with my computer. All I have is ' & \. It seems to figure a lot in these combinations however! Thank you.


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## jann

Alicia08 said:


> What / where is this symbol?  ` ? It does not appear anywhere on the small Mac keypad that came with my computer.


It seems that Apple has released several different UK keypad layouts.

The usual position of the ` key we're talking about is on the extreme left, second from the top (above the Tab key, to the left of the number 1, and below the Escape key).  You can see it there in this image.  But according to wikipedia, there is a second UK layout (image here) that places this key to the left of the letter Z.

Hope it helps!


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## Alicia08

Marvellous! Sorry the symbol on my keypad doesn't look quite like that - it's more like a horizontal line - but it works! Thank you very much (Macs are a whole new language...)


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## Alicia08

Following the discussion above., I have managed to successfully type numerous e-mails & documents using French accents. However, quite suddenly today, none of the shortcuts work - in either Firefox or Chrome. E.g. alt + i + e now produces ^´ instead of ê: Does anyone know what's causing this problem? I've had to go back to switching between the English & French keyboard which is not ideal. Grateful for any ideas.


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## jann

You don't say whether or not this affects all websites where you might try to type something, or just WR.  You do mention "emails and documents," though, which sound like they might not be in your web browser... and certainly would have nothing to do with WR.

If I've misunderstood, and this problem affects only WR, please try clearing your cache. I am not aware of any configuration changes here on our end that could have brought about the issue, but clearing the cache solves many problems because it removes local copies of files on your computer that may somehow have become corrupt.  

But if this problem affects all websites, or if it affects whatever email and word-processing software you use, then you should ask about it on a tech support forum. Perhaps you have a  newly-applied update (either to your browser or to your operating system) that is causing the issue.  We can certainly help with issues related to WordReference here in the Comments & Suggestions section, but we can't really do general computer trouble-shooting.


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