gnome-user-guide 3.4.1-1 / usr / share / help / C / gnome-help / tips-specialchars.page

<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
      type="topic" style="task"
      id="tips-specialchars">
  <info>
    <link type="guide" xref="tips"/>
    <link type="seealso" xref="keyboard-layouts"/>

    <revision pkgversion="3.4.0" date="2012-02-19" status="review"/>

    <credit type="author">
      <name>Shaun McCance</name>
      <email>shaunm@gnome.org</email>
    </credit>

    <desc>Type characters not found on your keyboard, including
    foreign alphabets, mathematical symbols, and dingbats.</desc>
    <include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
  </info>

  <title>Enter special characters</title>

  <comment>
    <cite date="2012-02-19">shaunm</cite>
    <p>Marking complete for 3.0. We didn't get keyboard-inputmethods in.
    If we get it for 3.0.1, uncomment the last section, write something,
    and link.</p>
  </comment>

  <p>You can enter and view thousands of characters from most of the world's
  writing systems, even those not found on your keyboard. This page lists
  some different ways you can enter special characters.</p>

  <links type="section">
    <title>Methods to enter characters</title>
  </links>

  <section id="charmap">
    <title>Character map</title>
    <p>GNOME comes with a character map application that allows you to browse
    all the characters in Unicode. Use the character map to find the character
    you want, and then copy and paste it to wherever you need it.</p>
    <p>You can find <app>Character Map</app> in the <gui>Activities</gui> overview.
    For more information on the character map, see the
    <link href="ghelp:gucharmap">Character Map Manual</link>.</p>
  </section>

  <section id="compose">
    <title>Compose key</title>
    <p>A compose key is a special key that allows you to press multiple keys
    in a row to get a special character. For example, to type the accented
    letter <em>é</em>, you can press <key>compose</key> then <key>'</key>
    then <key>e</key>.</p>
    <p>Keyboards don't have specific compose keys. Instead, you can define
    one of the existing keys on your keyboard as a compose key.</p>
    <steps>
      <title>Define a compose key</title>
      <item><p>Click your name on the top bar and select <gui>System Settings</gui>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Click <gui>Region and Language</gui>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Select the <gui>Layouts</gui> tab and click
      <gui>Options</gui>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Find the group called <gui>Compose key position</gui>.
      Select the key or keys you would like to behave as a compose key.
      You can choose keys like <key>Caps Lock</key>, either of the
      <key>Alt</key> keys, or the menu key. Any keys you select will
      then only work as a compose key, and will no longer work for
      their original purpose.</p></item>
    </steps>
    <p>You can type many common characters using the compose key, for
    example:</p>
    <list>
      <item><p>Press <key>compose</key> then <key>'</key> then a letter to
      place an acute accent over that letter, such as <em>é</em>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Press <key>compose</key> then <key>`</key> (back tick) then a
      letter to place a grave accent over that letter, such as
      <em>è</em>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Press <key>compose</key> then <key>"</key> then a letter to
      place an umlaut over that letter, such as <em>ë</em>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Press <key>compose</key> then <key>-</key> then a letter to
      place a macron over that letter, such as <em>ē</em>.</p></item>
    </list>
    <p>For more compose key sequences, see <link
    href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key#Common_compose_combinations">the
    compose key page on Wikipedia</link>.</p>
  </section>

  <section id="ctrlshiftu">
    <title>Code points</title>
    <p>You can enter any Unicode character using only your keyboard with the numeric
    code point of the character. Every character is identified by a four-character
    code point. To find the code point for a character, find the character in the
    character map application and look in the status bar or the <gui>Character
    Details</gui> tab. The code point is the four characters after <gui>U+</gui>.</p>

    <p>To enter a character by its code point, hold down <key>Ctrl</key> and
    <key>Shift</key>, type <key>u</key> followed by the four-character code
    point, then release <key>Ctrl</key> and <key>Shift</key>. If you often use
    characters that you can't easily access with other methods, you might find
    it useful to memorize the code point for those characters so you can enter
    them quickly.</p>
  </section>

  <section id="layout">
    <title>Keyboard layouts</title>
    <p>You can make your keyboard behave like the keyboard for another language,
    regardless of the letters printed on the keys. You can even easily switch
    between different keyboard layouts using an icon in the top bar. To learn
    how, see <link xref="keyboard-layouts"/>.</p>
  </section>

  <section id="im">
    <title>Input methods</title>
    <p>An Input Method expands the previous methods by allowing to enter
    characters not only with keyboard but any input devices also. For instance
    you could enter characters with a mouse using a gesture method, or enter
    Japanese characters using a Latin keyboard.</p>

    <p>To choose an input method, right-click over a text widget, and in the menu
    <gui>Input Method</gui>, choose an input method you want to use. There is
    no default input method provided, so refer to the input methods
    documentation to see how to use them.</p>
  </section>

</page>