h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How do you put the special characters in a posting? I tried to do it using the entity codes but discovered that those only work in GuideML.

Well, I've got a Mac, so its just the matter of using the option key. I'm not sure what works for other OSs.

And when anyone answers that: does it also work on laptops?

you have shortcut keys on your keyboard. If you go into Microsoft Word or what ever writing program you have, and find the special characters bit, it gives you the option to give shortcuts to make letters.

For example, my é is ctrl+alt+e

I'll give it a try!

I have a UK keyboard with 'ordinary' PC, running with OS Win98-2E.
As I am often typing things up in two, or even three or four languages (not that I completely understand more that two) I keep a crib sheet next to my printer that has a list of all the accented and odd characters like ½, with the numbers that one types in with the Alt key next to them.
I now know some of them off by heart - 130 é, 160 á, 0227 ã etc.

I often find that those don't work with some computers. For example, if I type Alt+1+3+0 all I get is a muted beep at me!

Another useful thing to perhaps do, is go into control panel and select a few more keyboards to use. For example, I have the English keyboard as my default but can also use the German one...which is endless fun seeing as of course my keyboard doesn't have the German keys written on it! Ten minutes just to find out where they put the > key!

I did some investigating and discovered that on a PC you can go to the 'character map', located under 'accessories' in the start menu, and it's got a list of all the characters and their shortcuts, or you can just click to copy a character into whatever you're typing. But then I tried to do it in this posting and I got a little named entity thing like this: ī which didn't show up as a character in the preview. So I'm no further along than I was...

ÙÙÙÙÙ®®®®®


Let's see if that worked...

Okay, I take that back, some of them *do* have alt keystrokes. But the ones I really want to use - Latin long marks - don't, so they won't work in conversations, just GuideML.

But just to prove I *can* do an alt one, ð. There, I'm very proud of my Old English letter.

Ooh! That's a good idea, there ought to be an Old English thread. Except I don't know any, and I don't know anyone who knows any. But if anyone's willing to teach Old English, I'm willing to learn!

*looks slightly vague*

Well, the character map thing worked for me! Did you try double clicking on the character you wanted, then copying it from the box underneath?

In Windows XP it's located in Accessories, System Tools. I don't know about other OSs.

To change your keyboard to a different language lay out, go to Control Panel, Regional and Language Options, Languages, Details, and then select your keyboards of choice. This way you will be able to switch between different keyboards. If you don't know how your new keyboard is laid out however (this will take some experimenting) you will come out with something slightly odd. You will have to restart your computer before this takes effect I think. Mine is refusing to do it currently, but that may be because my computer is nasty.

To create shortcut keys (there's probably a much easier way of doing this but I don't know), go into Word, the Insert menu, Symbol, then click on the symbols you need, assigning each of them a short cut key, using the button below the table. This way you will be able to press keys and end up with...é for example!

Gosh I'm just a bundle of usefulness tonight aren't I!? It's 3:34am here!

Kat

NO! We are NOT learning Old English young lady! Go and take part in some of the languages we already have!

What about a thread where people can talk in pseudo-Shakespeare style or something like that? (No teaching, just a thread for conversations. *soothes Katkat*) That would be fun!

*pokes katkodl* The day you can speak modern english properly, french reasonably, annnndddd let's give you another....some Dutch or Spanish take your pick. THEN I will let you go around speaking frilly english.


Try this....

"Yes sir, I will tell you; yet if you were not dunces you would never ask me such a question. For is not he corpus naturale? And is not that mobile? Then wherefore should you ask me such a question but that I am by nature phlegmatic, slow to wrath, and prone to lechery-to love I would say-it were not for you to come within forty foot of the place of execution, although I do not doubt to see you both hanged next sessions. Thus having triumphed over you, I will set my countenance like a precisian, and begin to dinner with Valdes and Cornelius, as this wine, if it could speak, it would inform your worships. And so the Lord bless you, preserve you, and keep you, my dear brethren, my dear brethren."


I'm not spending time talking like that to amuse two trouble makers .
I've noticed that our Danish Dept seems to have no learners. As does our Dutch department. I really want to learn dutch but it's lonely on my own. It also seems a lot like German in some things...but very different in others

Dutch is very different to German in the pronunciation, but I undertsand most of a text I read, although I've never learned any Dutch, but low German, which has parallels to Dutch

Come learn dutch with me! I don't get it! I seem to have brought together teachers all for only my benefit! This isn't right! Where ARE all my learning researchers???

I'm there! I'm just kind of absorbing, and trying to make sense of it!

I've just tried the 'alt' thing, it didn't work... probably because laptops don't have a number-pad. When I have my own laptop back I'll try to create keyboard shortcuts, which sound like a grand idea.
Till then, i guess it's cut-n'-paste for me... *sigh*

I'm with a note pad, and the ASCII code doesn't work here either - the missing number pad

é oooohhhhhhhh i did it!

Okay there should be a key on your laptop which says "Fn" and then on some keys you should have numbers. When you hold down the Fn key the numbers are your keypad!