In Mac OS X, how can I type foreign language characters?

In Mac OS X, for some diacritics and accent marks, you may need to install additional fonts, but you can produce some of the most common foreign language characters using the Option key:

You can also use the Keyboard Viewer:

1. From the Apple menu, select System Preferences... .
   
   
2. In System Preferences, from the View menu, select International.
   
   
3. Select the Input Menu tab, and then check the box next to Keyboard Viewer. A flag should appear in the menu bar in the upper right corner of your screen. The type of flag you see depends on the language you selected to be your default.
   
   
4. Click the flag icon in the menu bar, and from the menu that drops down, select Show Keyboard Viewer.

The Keyboard Viewer window contains a virtual keyboard that shows the characters associated with different keys. You can also see what characters are created when you hold down modifier keys like Option, Shift, and Cmd. To see the effect using different fonts, in the Keyboard Viewer window, select the font from the pop-up menu next to "Font:"; in Key Caps, select your preferred font from the Font menu.

Many fonts in OS X contain special characters for additional diacritics. To access these special characters, within the application you are currently using, open the Font panel (usually via a Show Fonts option from a menu in your menubar), and in the window that opens, look for the gear widget button. This button has an image of a small round gear with a downward-pointing triangle next to it. Click this button, and from the menu that appears, select Characters... .

You can also download the PopChar utility, which displays a drop-down sheet containing all the current font's characters when you click an icon in the menu bar. For more, see the Ergonis PopChar X page.

Also see:

• What are character sets?
• In Mac OS X, how do I install fonts?