Spanish keyboard shortcuts

[cachiras]

I'm trying to type documents using keyboard shortcuts for diacritical marks (such as accents etc.) in Spanish. I found the insert special characters area but how can I type the characters without stopping what I'm doing and typing some complex strand (which I'm not sure how to insert anyway)? Thanks

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Please read the Survival Guide to the Forum before posting. A search would soon find the answer. The same for your dual language spellcheck question. These are both very common questions. Check out the Tutorials forum.

[cachiras]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to waste your time, but I did a search and there is so much conversation on this that I'm still a bit confused. I was hoping to clarigy. If you can direct me to the exact postings that apply to these I would appreciate it.

thanks

[RGB]

http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/ ... f=71&t=881
(one of the first results)
You can also use this extension:
http://extensions.services.openoffice.o ... Characters
Another way (the best, IMO) is to switch keyboard layouts, but this is responsibility of your OS, not of OOo.
Switching languages:
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/ ... 634#p45634

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I did a search and there is so much conversation on this that I'm still a bit confused

Then tell us more about what your specific needs are. There are many ways to type accents in Windows, as you would have found from the various solutions offered.

1. Use a Windows International or Spanish keyboard
2. Design your own Windows keyboard
3. Use your standard UK/US keyboard but assign macros to type characters
4. Use a 3rd party utility to type them
5. Use Autocorrect to swap words without accents to words with accents, e.g. manana > mañana.

If you show that you have made some effort, we will be more willing to help. Repeating what has been said many times is a waste of our time. If you read the tutorial, but are still confused, tell me why, then maybe the tutorial can be improved.

[jrkrideau]

I'm trying to type documents using keyboard shortcuts for diacritical marks (such as accents etc.) in Spanish. I found the insert special characters area but how can I type the characters without stopping what I'm doing and typing some complex strand (which I'm not sure how to insert anyway)? Thanks

You have not told us what your OS or version of OOo is. If you are using Windows XP Vista you might want to try AllChars for Windows available at http://allchars.zwolnet.com/

[Frank111]

In reference to this:
>I'm trying to type documents using keyboard shortcuts for diacritical marks (such as accents etc.) in Spanish. I found the insert special characters area but how can I type the characters without stopping what I'm doing and typing some complex strand (which I'm not sure how to insert anyway)? Thanks

1. This is something easily done which I use all the time myself in EXCEL--and has been available at least since MSOffice 2000. Like the previous poster, I too would like to be able to switch over to Open Office and still retain my efficiency.

2. The way this works on Excel is a keyboard shortcut key can be assigned to a character, say, é, which is like an e in this case with a diacritical already attached. This character is actually part of the STANDARD ASCII symbol set BTW, ASCII 233 or U+00E9.

3. Anyone typing Spanish words into an English document like for example, "Señores", is not going to store every Spanish word with an "ñ" ('en-yay') in an insert list. That would be equivalent to the Chinese method of writing, storing the characters representing every single word or syllable you might want. We use an 36 character alphanumeric alphabet here in the western world with Spanish words requiring a few "extra" characters. In EXCEL it takes two seconds to program say, ALT-N, to store the appropriate ASCII character to produce this tilde laden n (ñ) which a person can use while typing at high speed. In EXCEL I've been using these diacritical, or specialized Spanish type letters since Office 2000, including ALT-N for ñ. ALT-E for é, ALT-A for á, ALT-I for í. That's about it. Now maybe there's a work-around in OOo using some sort of 'keyboard modification' or alternate layout. But remember we want the standard layout as our foundation, with only a few modifications. If it exists I haven't been able to find it.

4. Macros might work, but for the new person to OOo, someone who doesn't speak VB, this could be a tortuous experience. Especially when he or she has work deadlines to meet but would really like to switch from an MS product to OpenOffice.

5. Asking for information such as OS is inappropriate here. This is an OOo feature operation question not an OS question. If you want to help on the forum, and I'm sure the moderators can correct me if I'm wrong here: simply post your answer if you have one--or your non-critical question if you don't understand what someone is looking for. I'm sure it will be greatly appreciated. I don't think torturing someone psychologically, especially someone who clearly had done his homework before he came to the board with his question, helps anybody. Maybe he didn't express it as clearly as I have. If you don't know how to do it, allow me to suggest you simply leave it for someone else.

[Frank111]

Here's a very nice article that tells how to do this in Windows using MSWord:
http://www.spanishnewyork.com/spanish-characters.html

I'm pretty certain there will be no useful reply to my previous post--all the solutions I've seen, disappointingly pale compared to the above simple Windows solution. It seems to me this is a serious weakness / flaw in Writer. Think how many millions of Spanish speaking people want to communicate using English, but still require some words in Spanish. And how many require accented words in straight Spanish. Even Latin-American keyboards are deficient in the placement of accented vowels without leaving a space in a word. There are other Latin-based languages, French for one, that would benefit greatly from this feature. I can get an ñ by setting up an alternate Fedora keyboard but not the accented space-less vowels.

If someone from OOo reads this they ought to get on fixing this problem!

[Robert Tucker]

Asking for information such as OS is inappropriate here.

I'm sorry, but asking for OS information is very important here. On some Linux systems, but not all, these characters can be input with the simple use of something called the compose key, and indeed by other methods not available on Windows.

If you want to type in Spanish the obvious thing on both Windows and Linux is to use a Spanish keyboard layout and since in the case of Spanish the layout of the alphabetical keys is the same as for English, this should cause no problem for the user. If it's just a few characters in Spanish then the US International keyboard or AllChars may be the best way on.

Unless you can input non-English characters in all other applications except OpenOffice, it is an OS problem.

[Frank111]

Incorrect. Take a close look at the Spanish and Latin-American keyboard overlays on your own machine, Robert. the ñ is located where the apostrophe is on the English keyboard. Not a terribly intuitive location for the average editor or translator. Also, ALL the accented vowels are completely MISSING. No where to be found.

>Unless you can input non-English characters in all other applications except OpenOffice, it is an OS problem.

This feature is standard on Word, and Word Perfect. It is also standard to be able to access these character sets easily on the Mac and in Windows, much more difficult in Linux. See the following list in the last half of this article:

http://faculty.weber.edu/tmathews/grammar/Compmark.html

[Robert Tucker]

Incorrect. Take a close look at the Spanish and Latin-American keyboard overlays on your own machine, Robert. the ñ is located where the apostrophe is on the English keyboard. Not a terribly intuitive location for the average editor or translator. Also, ALL the accented vowels are completely MISSING. No where to be found.

Note that I stated:

...in the case of Spanish the layout of the alphabetical keys is the same...

Spanish keyboard:

Code: Select all

ª ! “ · $ % & / ( ) = ? ¿
º 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ' ¡
   Q W E R T Y U I O P ^ *
   q w e r t y u i o p ` +
    A S D F G H J K L Ñ ¨ Ç
    a s d f g h j k l ñ ´ ç
   | Z X C V B N M ; : _
   \ z x c v b n m , . -

This feature is standard on Word, and Word Perfect.

What is standard?

It is also standard to be able to access these character sets easily on the Mac and in Windows

In what sense?

much more difficult in Linux.

What's so difficult about typing <compose key> ' a to get á ? No holding down of keys while you hit others.

[Frank111]

Yes, the <compose key> in Linux will work. But that's three keys, not two. Imagine if you had to use three keys every single time you wanted to capitalize a letter in English. And CAPITAL diacriticals are four keys! É = "<your assigned compose key> + ' + <shift> + E" for example. How much simpler just to assign ALT-E! As you can do on the Mac or in MSWord or in Wordperfect! If you use the ASCII set in Windows that's also four keys. Why can't the OOo guys do what all their competitors have done years ago and create assignable keyboard shortcuts for characters, the FEATURE I'm referring about in MSWord, and WordPerfect?

[Robert Tucker]

But that's three keys, not two. Imagine if you had to use three keys every single time you wanted to capitalize a letter in English

Well, this is the time to start thinking of changing keyboard layout, of course.

Admittedly I would like to be able to just type alt+hyphen to get an en-dash and maybe alt+shift+hyphen to get an em-dash rather than <compose key>--. and <compose key>--- but I would prefer to be able to do so system wide. (If I just understood Linux keyboards just that little bit better maybe I would be able to implement it.)

[Frank111]

OR...maybe it's time the developers caught up with the other guys.

[wamorgan]

Open Office needs a simple solution to accents similar to WORD. There you need only use "insert" > "symbol" symbol which brings up the keyboard. Then you can simply reprogram key strokes, for example á can be configured so that that control + a gives it. Then you can produce documents in both languages or simply Spanish and not have to do the complicated business of insert + symbol (and then hunt the symbol) which slows down the typing process tremendously.

[fsb2cool2care]

Thank you so much Frank111 for your voice of reason! It is obvious those other guys don't type in Spanish, or understand that just because you want to type an occasional document in Spanish doesn't mean you want to change your whole keyboard layout to Spanish. I SO hate the retarded follow up questions. 'Why can't you just write your own program?...What color socks are you wearing?...etc.'

I have been using the extension found here: http://extensions.services.openoffice.o ... accentuate It requires a little time to set up, but it works good for me. To see the instructions you have to click on the "release notes" link.

[Robert Tucker]

Some people may choose accentuate others may prefer ComposeSpecialCharacters.

Windows users may also like to look at:

http://allchars.zwolnet.com/

and

http://www.accentcomposer.com/

I don't immediately see any advantage of any of the above over the Linux Compose key. If you are going to be typing so many of them, I don't see that switching keyboard layout isn't the best solution.

[StephTech]

I have appreciated this thread, having a new client with a ñ in his name. Like Frank111, I was surprised I could not assign shortcut keys in OpenOffice as easily as in MS Office.
I did find a solution easier than setting up extensions or third-party programs. It requires no "extra" keystrokes as does the aforementioned Linux Compose key, and does not go to the ridiculous extreme of changing the keyboard layout (where ; is replaced by ñ and = is replaced by ¿ so how then do you type the semicolon and equal sign?)

Simply activate the U.S. International Keyboard! This was mentioned in passing earlier in this thread, though not explained and therefore possibly confused with the Spanish keyboard nonsense. This setting is found under English (United States), and only changes the way a few keys work.

Typing Spanish Written Accents
Windows Vista or Windows 7
1. Start-->Control Panel-->Clock, Language, Region-->Change Keyboards
2. New Window: Click the Change Keyboards button
3. New Window: Click the Add button
4. Select United States-International keyboard
5. Click OK
6. From drop down menu (Default Input Language) select United States International
7. Click Apply then OK

The above link also includes the rather intuitive keystrokes, basically accent + letter, and a few special notes on punctuation marks.
These settings work in Write, and I imagine they will work the same in the rest of OpenOffice. Being a system setting, it also works in Thunderbird and CorelDRAW X5, but not in Yahoo IM, which is as far as I have tried it.

Works in Yahoo IM, works in this post composition space without coding! Ñ ö é ç ¡ ¿
I got excited earlier and was trying it without closing and reopening my programs-for the beginning of this post I actually copied/pasted the ñ from another post!

[RoryOF]

For historical reasons to do with a hangover from the early days of computing, file paths with non ASCII96 chacacters in them tend to give trouble. Avoid if possible.

[StephTech]

For historical reasons to do with a hangover from the early days of computing, file paths with non ASCII96 chacacters in them tend to give trouble. Avoid oif possible.

Good catch! When I set up the file for my new client, I resisted my newfound keystroke combos just by intuition. I appreciate the affirmation, and this is an excellent point to remember for any alternative keyboard discussion.

Thanks!

[expertmm]

Incorrect. Take a close look at the Spanish and Latin-American keyboard overlays on your own machine, Robert. the ñ is located where the apostrophe is on the English keyboard. Not a terribly intuitive location for the average editor or translator. Also, ALL the accented vowels are completely MISSING. No where to be found.

Note that I stated:

...in the case of Spanish the layout of the alphabetical keys is the same...

Spanish keyboard:

Code: Select all

ª ! “ · $ % & / ( ) = ? ¿
º 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ' ¡
   Q W E R T Y U I O P ^ *
   q w e r t y u i o p ` +
    A S D F G H J K L Ñ ¨ Ç
    a s d f g h j k l ñ ´ ç
   | Z X C V B N M ; : _
   \ z x c v b n m , . -

why are you including that, that seems troll-like, since you are correcting him for being one key off in his description.

This feature is standard on Word, and Word Perfect.

What is standard?

There are several ways to define standards:
-that which the vast majority of people use
-standards from international standards organizations
-standards from national standards organizations
-that which people are taught in schools
Since there aren't standards from standards organizations at play within the scope of his question (and keyboard layouts are not in question since he is interested in typing with a standard english keyboard), then you have to cater to the fact that people, if they want to switch from Microsoft, are expecting the program to do Alt N, Alt E, Ctrl Shift ~ then n, Ctrl Shift ' then e, etc.

It is also standard to be able to access these character sets easily on the Mac and in Windows

In what sense?

In the sense that nearly every Windows computer has Microsoft Office & most people don't even know any other office exists or how to use another one.

much more difficult in Linux.

What's so difficult about typing <compose key> ' a to get á ? No holding down of keys while you hit others.

Difficult since that is a 3-key chain, which I've never had to use in my life except typing in cheat codes for games, since I learned to program when I was 12 and I'm 30 and teach programming now.
Copping an attitude because someone expects not to configure their OS when previously they held down Alt is really what prevents widespread adoption of OpenOffice.