Pages - foreign language characters

[agwilliams]

Apologies for asking something blindingly simple, but when using Pages I am frustrated in my attempt to insert foreign characters with accents such as umlauts. The official guidance is simply to hold down the letter in order to bring up a menu of different accents, but when I press and hold any letter I just get it repeated, as in: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Help, please!

 

[Raz0rEdge]

On my Monterrey based Mac, holding down a letter does not repeat it, but rather for letters which can have accents, I do get a popup showing me the options. For letters with no accents, I get nothing at all except the single character I hit. If I want to repeat the character, I have to lift my finger and click again.

My wireless keyboard is configured for the US keyboard layout.

Interestingly, in my case, I can't seem to get the characters to repeat while holding down the key, I have to continually click and the setting in the Keyboard section of Sys Prefs doesn't seem to make a difference.

 

[IWT]

My KB is set for British English. My OS is Big Sur.

Holding down the letter "e" > è é ê ë ē ė ę

Same for "o". > ô ö ò ó œ ø ō õ

And for all other relevant letters. By relevant, I mean letters that have other language options.

Otherwise holding down a letter such as "k" does nothing other than show that letter.

Ian

 

[agwilliams]

My iMac is running Monterey, standard UK settings.
I have managed to get around the problem by locating documents containing text with accents of various sorts, then copying the characters and pasting them into my document. It works, but it's clumsy and there must surely be a better way!

 

[RadDave]

Apologies for asking something blindingly simple, but when using Pages I am frustrated in my attempt to insert foreign characters with accents such as umlauts. The official guidance is simply to hold down the letter in order to bring up a menu of different accents, but when I press and hold any letter I just get it repeated, as in: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Help, please!

My iMac is running Monterey, standard UK settings.
I have managed to get around the problem by locating documents containing text with accents of various sorts, then copying the characters and pasting them into my document. It works, but it's clumsy and there must surely be a better way!

Hi - like the others I prefer the 'accents' table appearing when holding down certain letters - you might want to check the 'Keyboard' in System Preferences - if the 'Key Repeat' is set to OFF, then 'accents' are disabled - give that a check. Note - I'm running Monterey and when I set to OFF, the table does not appear but the letter also does not repeat as in your case? Not sure how to get that function back in macOS, probably a 'terminal command' would work? Good luck and let us know - Dave

 

[ferrarr]

What app does this happen with, or does it happen within every app?

 

[krs]

Apologies for asking something blindingly simple, but when using Pages I am frustrated in my attempt to insert foreign characters with accents such as umlauts. The official guidance is simply to hold down the letter in order to bring up a menu of different accents, but when I press and hold any letter I just get it repeated, as in: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Help, please!

I never realized that holding down the letter key brings up a pop-up with all the options, but that actually works even on Mojave.

For German Umlauts I always use this simple and quick method:
Before typing the letter with the Umlaut, ie "ä"
Hold down the Option key and hit the "u" then type the letter.
Works for upper and lower case.
For the German ß, same idea - hold down the option key and type "s"
For French, same idea again excepy it's Option é (for ´ )
You can look up which Option + letter to use by looking at the Keyboard viewer.

When I type in French or German, I find that is the fastest way to get the accents.
And I don't think this method is application dependent - at least so far I have not come across any application where this does not work.

 

[agwilliams]

Hmm. I've tried just about everything but so far without success. The example of how to get an "a" with umlaut suggested by krs above produces an "a" with a circle on top!

Thanks for your efforts gentlemen but I think I'll just spend a few minutes creating a new document into which I'll copy letters with accents from existing documents and copy+paste them as required.

Incidentally, while trying all manner of key combinations to see what effect they have on this, I somehow managed to disable the sound volume keys (F10-F12). I have no idea how to restore them - restarting the computer hasn't done it - but fortunately in Youtube the on-screen volume control works OK.

 

[agwilliams]

What app does this happen with, or does it happen within every app?

Pages is what I use, not tried it with anything else.

 

[IWT]

managed to disable the sound volume keys (F10-F12). I have no idea how to restore them

Try this: open System Preferences > Keyboard and click on "Keyboard" if not automatically done.

At the bottom of the window, you'll see "Use F1, F2 keys etc". Ticking/unticking that box changes the way the keys work. It comes down to whether you need to hold down the "fn" key whilst using any of the "F" keys at the top of your KB, or not. Have a play with that first.

Ian

 

[agwilliams]

Try this: open System Preferences > Keyboard and click on "Keyboard" if not automatically done.

At the bottom of the window, you'll see "Use F1, F2 keys etc". Ticking/unticking that box changes the way the keys work. It comes down to whether you need to hold down the "fn" key whilst using any of the "F" keys at the top of your KB, or not. Have a play with that first.

Ian

Great - unticking the box restored the volume control - thanks!

 

[IWT]

Oh great! A good start to the day for both of us!!

Ian

 

[agwilliams]

At last - this works for me! From: 3 Easiest Ways How to Type Accents on Mac

Here’s how to put accents on letters on Mac using the typical English keyboard. These shortcuts work perfectly for most Latin-script languages, without the need to switch between input sources.

• Acute (á, é, í, ó, ú, ý): Option–E, the letter
• Circumflex (â, ê, î, ô, û): Option–I, the letter
• Tilde (ã, õ, ñ): Option–N, the letter
• Umlaut and dieresis (ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ÿ): Option–U, the letter
• Grave (à, è, ì, ò, ù): Option–`(grave), the letter
• Cedilla (ç): Option–C
• OE Ligature (œ): Option–Q
• Æ Ligature (æ): Option–’ (apostrophe)
• å: Option–A
• ø: Option–O
• ß: Option–S
• ¿: Shift–Option–?
• ¡: Option–1

 

[krs]

At last - this works for me! From: 3 Easiest Ways How to Type Accents on Mac

Here’s how to put accents on letters on Mac using the typical English keyboard. These shortcuts work perfectly for most Latin-script languages, without the need to switch between input sources.

• Umlaut and dieresis (ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ÿ): Option–U, the letter

Isn't that exactly what I wrote in post #7?

Works for every application I have ever used

 

[agwilliams]

Isn't that exactly what I wrote in post #7?

Works for every application I have ever used

Sorry about that, for some reason when I tried the example you gave it produced the wrong accent, with a small circle over the letter rather than an umlaut, so I assumed that method wasn't working for me. Probably an error on my part (always a safe assumption....)

 

[krs]

When you first posted that my suggestion did not work, I initially thought you might have set your Mac for a different region/language than mine (mine is Canadian English) - that would explain getting different accents.
When I need a foreign letter symbol that I need very seldom and where I don't know the key combination on how to get it, I just select the keyboard viewer in the top task bar and try the modifier keys.

 

[agwilliams]

Next question - I've worked my way through the top task bars for Pages and Safari but can't find a keyboard viewer listed.

I also seem to have inadvertently interfered with print instructions when playing with the function keys. When I try to print something, everything seems to be OK at first, but after grinding through the usual warm-up noises, there is silence...

 

[ferrarr]

The Keyboard Viewer is in the macOS Menu bar on the right near the clock. It needs to be enabled in System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources. Select Show Input menu in the menu bar.

 

[IWT]

@agwilliams

And it looks like this:



Obviously, the exact icon will depend on which country you live in and which language you've chosen. My point is that it doesn't look like a keyboard layout.

Ian

 

[krs]

@agwilliams

And it looks like this:

View attachment 35943

Obviously, the exact icon will depend on which country you live in and which language you've chosen. My point is that it doesn't look like a keyboard layout.

Ian

Mine, Canadian English, actually does.
For me there is no country flag or any words, just an icon that looks a bit like a keyboard.
For me it's just left of the date and time.