[HOWTO]Typing international characters and texts

[Giaguara]

Since I can't find out a good, dedicated thread to this, or a good article anywhere else in the net either, time to make one.

Typing international characters with Mac OS X

1) Shortcuts with keyboard.
These are practical when you have a short piece of text to write, and don't need or bother to change the whole keyboard layout for whatever you are typing. So when you need only a few letters that aren't directly showing on your current layout.
All the below are with US keyboard layout. If you use a non-US keyboard layout, you may have a different keyboard shortcut for these.

Option-e [letter]
-for ´ á é í ó ú ´ Á É Í Ó Ú
Option-i [letter]
-for ˆ â ê î ô û ˆ Â Ê Î Ô Û
Option-u [letter]
-for ¨ ä ë ï ö ü ¨ Ä Ë Ï Ö Ü
Option-n [letter]
-for ˜ ã ñ õ ˜ Ã Ñ Õ
Option-` [letter]
-for ` à è ì ò ù ` À È Ì Ò Ù
Option-i [letter]
- for â ê î ô û ˆ Â Ê Î Ô Û
Option-q
- for ligature œ
Option-c
- for cedilla ç
Option-a
- for Swedish å
Option-o
- for Nordic ø
Option-s
- for German ß
Option-y
- for yen ¥
Option-Shift-/ (forward slash)
- for upside-down question mark ¿
Option-1 (the number 1)
- for upside-down exclamation point ¡

2) Using character palette

To have character palette showing, go to System Preferences > International > Input Menu > select Character Palette, and "Show Input menu in menu bar."

Then, in the application you are using, select Edit > Special Characters to open the Character Palette, or click the Input menu icon in the menu bar and choose Show Character Palette. Choose the characters you want, and doubleclick to insert it to your text.

3) Changing your keyboard layout
This would be practical if you have a completely different keyboard in front of you, and just can't type with it. So if you are used to US or UK keyboard, and are suddenly in front of a Swiss French or French mac, or have Swedish layout instead of Japanese.. or you just are faster typing a certain full text using another language keyboard.

In System Preferences > International > Input Menu >
select all the keyboard layouts you want to use. If you will be using more than one on the same user, it can be practical to tick the "Show Input menu in menu bar." When that is ticked, you can change the keyboard layout as often as you want from your menu bar, clicking on the country flag.

Note : if you have multiple users in your Mac OS X, every user can have their language and the keyboard layout in use to be different. This can be sometimes helpful even if there is only one user needing to write texts in multiple languages. Or when in the family or school computer you have a need for people using their computer in different languages.

More :
How to do accented characters?
Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts
Mac OS 8.5, 8.6, 9.0: Keyboard Shortcuts
Rixstep | Mac OS X Shortcuts
Mac OS X: How to type special characters, including Symbol or Zapf Dingbat fonts
Typing special characters and symbols