osx - Mac keyboard shortcuts for special characters

23
2013-10
  • roflwaffle

    I am able to get a diaeresis over a letter by Option+u (ë) and an acute accent by Option+e (é). Is there a keyboard shortcut to get both combined? So that the accent is over the letter with a diaeresis?

    • Answers
  • David Rouse

    Under "System Preferences" > "International" > "Input Menu" check "Character Palette". This will put a menu on the menu bar with an icon of the national flag of whatever keyboard layout you are using. From that menu, you can select "Show Character Palette" and you get a window that shows all of the characters that are legitimate Unicode.

    To insert a Unicode character into a text field that accepts Unicode, set your insertion point and then either double-click the character in the palette, or select the character in the palette and then click the "Insert" button.

    My description comes from a computer running Mac OS X 10.5, there may be other ways to do this, but this seems easy to remember.

    Note -- my suggestion doesn't seem to solve your specific diaeresis+acute over 'e' question. The closest Unicode character I see is Macron+Acute over 'e'.

  • user39520

    Just found this website that has a good overview on how to insert "special" characters. http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codemacext.html

  • JDB

    Brandon,

    From what I've seen it may be possible depending on your character set (see not on international system preference in the included link). The following has about as good a walk through about international characters as I've seen. Otherwise, I've not seen any way to do what you're asking.

    http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codemacext.html

    JDB


    • Related Question

    OSX Keyboard Shortcuts in Dialogs?
  • Dan Fabulich

    On Windows, every dialog box includes underlined letters that you can activate using the Alt key. I use these "Alt" keyboard shortcuts all the time; I'm missing them as I'm trying to switch to OSX.

    On OSX, all I can find is Tab navigation, which requires you to press Tab seven or eight times to get anywhere in most dialog boxes. (And even that is hidden by default: you have to enable "Full keyboard access" in the "Keyboard & Mouse" control panel to be able to Tab between buttons.)

    Is there some way I can get something like the Windows Alt accelerators for OSX dialogs? I'm willing to write Automator code, download/purchase software, etc.

    Specifically, I'm imagining maybe something where you do some shortcut command and then start typing the name of the button, and hit Enter to push the button...?


    • Related Answers
  • Al Everett

    In OSX there's no such thing as the "_" for dialogs like in Windows. However, you have:

    esc → defaults to no/cancel

    cmd + del → don't save (cmd + d before OS X Lion)

    enter → save/OK

    spacebar → click selected button (use tab to move).

    A quick Google search for "osx keyboard shortcuts" will teach you way more than you can memorize in one day, but you should; there are dozens and some are very valuable.

    You can always add more/change some existing ones by going to System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts, exactly where you activated "all controls".

    But as far as I know, there's no "underscore" thing in OSX.

  • XP84

    In addition to Martín's essential list of shortcuts (which work almost everywhere), you should know that in a File Open or File Save dialog you can press / or ~ to jump straight to a popup sheet that will let you type in a folder path. This is great for if you are a super fast typist, or if you want to go to a hidden folder like ~/.ssh.

    That field even does Tab Completion, sort-of—the catch is if there are zero matches, or more than one match, when you press Tab, instead of doing any kind of completion Tab will just jump you out of the text field.

  • javadba

    This is not possible in OS/X. And a key reason I do not prefer Macs.

    The OP points out a critical failing in OS/X: the ability to rapidly - and with only the keyboard - select any entries (not just "OK / cancel", etc) in a dialog box. None of the suggestions above can do that.

    A common example is: within a Find/Replace dialog I want to change from Case Sensitive to Case Insensitive. In Linux (and in windows) I can achieve that using only keystrokes. This is not possible in MAC: you have to use the mouse or fumble around with tabbing multiple times.