Word Processing & Typing Special Characters

 

 

Microsoft Office programs are available for students with spell check and text inputs in various languages installed on all the computers in the Language Learning Lab. The most commonly used Office programs at NEIU are; Word (word processing), PowerPoint (slideshow presentations) and Excel (spreadsheets). iWorks and iLife sofware is also available for media and word processing tasks in Mac OS X.

 

The Language Learning Lab's computers are equipped with various international keyboards and text input methods that can be accessed with the Language Bar located next to the clock in the lower right of the screen in Windows and the upper right of the screen in Mac.

 

Click the EN icon (Language Bar) in the System Try to see a list of typing languages in Windows 7.

 

 

In Mac OS X, click the flag to see list of typing languages available

 

 

 

To change spell check editing languages click the Review tab in Windows and Tools menu in Mac.

 

 

 

Select the langauge in which you wish to type. Those that are checked are installed.

 

To make MS Office keep checking in the desired langauge, unckeck "Detect Language Automatically" and "Do Not Check..." and click Default, and Yes. Not doing this last step will cause MS Office to revert to English after pressing Ener to skip lines and start new paragraphs.

When used the language bar in conjunction with Microsoft Office programs the appropriate character sets and input methods are automatically activated. To see the keyboard maps and memorize the keystrokes, double click the icon "On Screen Keyboard" located in the Start Menu under Ease of Acess in Windows, and at the very bottom of the language menu in Mac (pictured above). While this keyboard map is useful for disabled persons, it's also a way to memorize the keys in an unfamilair langauge. This is an example of the Arabic keyboard map and the Language Bar on top of a blank MS Word document screen.

 

 

Keyboard Layout "Cheat Sheets" can also be found on the Microsoft Website at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb964651.aspx

 

There are various ways to type characters with accents and diacritics for European languages. Two common methods are described in the charts below. These methods use the US/International keyboard layout which uses combinations of punctuation marks with letters while preserving the familiar QWERTY keyboard layout.

 

Typing Multinational Characters Windows US/International Keyboard Layout
Character	Keystrokes: "Release" means let go before typing.
á é í ó ú	' (apostrophe) release plus a e i o u
Á É Í Ó Ú	' (apostrophe) release plus A E I O U
à è ì ò ù	accent grave (`) release plus a e i o u
À È Ì Ò Ù	accent grave (`) release plus shift a e i o u
â ê î ô û	shift circumflex (^) release plus a e i o u
Â Ê Î Ô Û	shift circumflex (^) release plus shift a e i o u
ä ë ï ö ü	shift double quote (") release plus a e i o u
ä ë ï ö ü	shift double quote (") release plus shift a e i o u
ñ	control alt n or shift ~ (tilde) release plus n
Ñ	control alt shift n or shift ~ (tilde) release plus N
ç	apostrophe (') release plus c
Ç	apostrophe (') release plus shift c
ß	control alt s
¿	control alt /
¡	control alt 1
«	control alt [
»	control alt ]
'	apostrophe (') release plus space
"	double quote (") release plus space
If these keystrokes don't work in Microsoft Word, use "Insert Symbol" instead. More information and directions to install this keyboard layout on your computer.