Using Foreign Languages in Microsoft Windows and Word

Table of Contents

Overview
Insert Symbol
Insert Character by ALT + Number
Microsoft Word Keystroke Combinations
US-International Keyboard Layout
Multiple Language Support in Windows
Changing the Keyboard Layout for a Language
Windows Multilingual Support for Central European, Cyrillic and Greek Based Languages
Additional Information

 Overview

If you are new to Microsoft Word 97, 98, 2000, or XP then you may have trouble creating the accented foreign language characters used in previous versions. In these newer versions of Word you create such characters through one of three methods.

  • The Insert Symbol command

  • The Insert Character by using ALT + Number method

  • Word keystroke combinations

Another alternative is to alter the keyboard layout in Windows. The US-International keyboard layout has its own set of keystroke combinations, useful for Romance languages. You may have used these same keystrokes with other Windows word processors. All versions of Windows after Windows 95 support the keyboard layouts used in most countries and allow one to switch between them. Windows support for multiple languages is explained in the second half of this document.

 Insert Symbol

The Insert Symbol command is available from the Insert menu. It is easy to use if you don't use foreign language characters often but require them now and then.

  1. Place the cursor in the position where you would like the symbol to appear.

  2. Using the pull-down Insert menu, select Symbol....

  3. The dialog box shows you a chart of every character in the currently selected font. For foreign language characters choose the (normal text) font.

  4. Browse in the chart to find the character you need and click on it. Then press Insert.

 Insert Character by ALT + Number

For those who use international characters more frequently the Insert Character by ALT + Number command will be useful. A standard three or four digit number commonly defines every character and symbol in a normal text font. The three digit codes are known as the ASCII character codes. Four digit codes are Microsoft's own invention, called Unicode. Using your keyboard you can type any character, though it may not be assigned to a specific individual key. This is done by using the ALT key. Use the following steps to insert a character by code.

  1. Place the cursor in the position where you want the character to appear.

  2. Holding down the ALT key, type the character code on the numeric keypad. Try the code 129 for example, producing the | character. You have to type all the digits, including leading zeros if they are present.

  3. Release the ALT key.

The codes for the most frequently used international characters are included in a chart below. They are also displayed in the Character Map program, which you can get to by clicking the under Start menu, then clicking Accessories, and then System Tools (in Microsoft Word 97 and 98, the Character Map is found under Accessories in the Start menu).

 Keys to the Foreign Language Characters

 

Table 1. Characters With Grave Accents

Character With Grave Accent ALT + Number Microsoft Word Keystroke Combinations
` 133 Grave Accent: Press CTRL and ` (Accent Grave) and release, then type the letter in lower or upper case.
h 138
l 141
r 149
y 151
@ 0192
H 0200
L 0204
R 0210
Y 0217

 

Table 2. Characters With Acute Accents

Character With Acute Accent ALT + Number Microsoft Word Keystroke Combinations
a 160 Acute Accent: Press CTRL and ` (Apostrophe) and release, then type the letter in lower or upper case.
i 130
m 161
s 162
z 163
} 0253
A 0193
I 144
M 0205
S 0211
Z 0218
] 0221

 

Table 3. Characters With Circumflex Accents

Character With Circumflex Accent ALT + Number Microsoft Word Keystroke Combinations
b 131 Circumflex: Press CTRL and ^ (Caret) and release, then type the letter in lower or upper case.
j 136
n 140
t 147
{ 150
B 0194
J 0202
N 0206
T 0212
[ 0219

 

Table 4. Characters With Tildes

Character With Tilde ALT + Number Microsoft Word Keystroke Combinations
c 0227 Tilde: Press CTRL and ~ (Tilde) and release, then type the letter in lower or upper case.
q 164
u 0245
C 0195
Q 165
U 0213

 

Table 5. Characters With Umlauts

Character With Umlaut ALT + Number Microsoft Word Keystroke Combinations
d 132 Umlaut: Press CTRL and : (Colon) and release, then type the letter in lower or upper case.
k 137
o 139
v 148
| 129
 152
D 142
K 0203
O 0207
V 153
\ 154

 

Table 6. More International Characters

More International Characters ALT + Number Microsoft Word Keystroke Combinations
e 134 Press CTRL - SHIFT and @ and release, then type the letter A in lower or upper case.
E 143
f 145 Press CTRL - SHIFT and & and release, then type the letter A in lower or upper case.
F 146
g 135 Press CTRL - , (comma) and release, then type the letter C in lower or upper case.
G 138
x 0248 Press CTRL - / (slash) and release, then type the letter O in lower or upper case.
X 0216
? 168 Press ALT - CTRL - SHIFT and ?.

 Microsoft Word Keystroke Combinations

Word 97, 98, 2000, and XP have preset keystroke combinations for most international characters. The tables above show the sequence of keys used for each character. They are intuitive and easy to memorize. If you use international characters frequently and have not yet memorized an alternate keyboard layout, then this method is recommended.

 US-International Keyboard Layout

If you frequently need to type characters with diacritical marks, try installing the US-International keyboard layout. The US-International keyboard layout has an advantage in that it leaves all the standard US keys in place while supplementing them with keystroke combinations for accented characters. The sequences of these keystrokes are listed in the table below. You will not need to hold down any keys other than SHIFT.

 

Table 7. Special Character keystrokes

Grave Accent (h) Acute or Cedilla (m or g) Umlaut (\) Tilde (q) Circumflex (b)
Single quote + letter Apostrophe + letter Double quote + letter SHIFT + tilde + letter SHIFT + caret + letter

Note

If you need to use the quote, apostrophe, tilde or caret characters you can type that character followed by the spacebar and it will appear. See the section "Multiple Language Support in Windows" for directions on how to setup the keyboard layout from a particular country.

Note

If your United States-International keyboard layout does not function properly in Word, but works in other applications, then some Word shortcuts are probably interfering. You can work around this problem by removing those particular shortcuts. See the Word 97 Help topic "Customizing Shortcuts" or the Word 2000 Help Topic "Assign or Remove a Shortcut Key."

 Multiple Language Support in Windows

Windows 98 and 95 implement a high degree of support for multiple languages. The Windows system allows you to install many type sets and keyboard layouts to be used interchangeably. Installing the Multilanguage Support component can further extend the set of languages available in these operating systems. In Windows NT and 2000 this multilingual support is included in the standard installation.

 Adding a Language to Windows:

The languages installed on your system will allow applications to determine which proofing tools to apply to each block of text. When more than one language is installed, an indicator on the taskbar shows which one is currently selected. By clicking on the same indicator you can switch between languages. Word uses the language setting to mark blocks of text as French, Spanish and so on. This marking later determines which spell check dictionary, thesaurus and grammar rules apply to each block of text. See the directions below to add a language.

For Word 97 or 98

  1. From the Start Menu, select Start → Settings → Control Panel → Keyboard.

  2. Select the Language tab.

  3. Press Add.

  4. Choose the additional language from the Input Locale field and press OK.

  5. Press OK and, if prompted, insert the Windows Setup CD or locate the files elsewhere.

For Word 2000

  1. From the Start Menu, select Start → Settings → Control Panel → Keyboard.

  2. Select the Language tab.

  3. Press Add.

  4. Choose the additional language from the Add Language field and press OK.

  5. Press OK and, if prompted, insert the Windows Setup CD or locate the files elsewhere.

For Word XP

  1. From the Start Menu, select Start → Settings → Control Panel → Keyboard.

  2. Select the Input Locale tab.

  3. Press Add.

  4. Choose the additional language from the Input Locale> field and press OK.

  5. Press OK and, if prompted, insert the Windows Setup CD or locate the files elsewhere.

 Changing the Keyboard Layout for a Language

The keyboard layout that you install changes the correspondence between the keys in front of you and the characters that they generate. Each language can be assigned a separate keyboard layout. For example, you might want to retain the standard US 101 keyboard layout when writing in English and switch to the United States-International layout when writing in French. Follow the directions below to set the keyboard layout for an installed language.

For Word 97, 98, or 2000

  1. From the Start Menu, select Start → Settings → Control Panel → Keyboard.

  2. Select the Language tab.

  3. Select the language that you want to configure from those installed by clicking on it.

  4. Press the Properties button, and in the drop-down selection list choose your new keyboard layout and press OK.

  5. Press OK to close the keyboard control panel.

For Word XP

  1. From the Start Menu, selectStart → Settings → Control Panel → Keyboard.

  2. In the dialog box that appears, select the Input Locale tab.

  3. Select the language that you want to configure from those installed by clicking on it.

  4. Press Add and then select your new keyboard layout in the Keyboard Layout field of the Add Input Locale dialog box.

  5. Press OK to close the keyboard control panel.

 Windows Multilingual Support for Central European, Cyrillic and Greek Based Languages

The North American versions of Windows 98 and 95 install with a long list of languages and keyboard layouts. However, if you need to create or view documents in Central European, Cyrillic or Greek based languages, you must first install the Multilingual Support component for Windows. This component includes the type sets, language rules, dictionaries and keyboard layouts that support these languages. See the Windows Help topic Multilanguage Support for instructions. These languages and keyboard layouts will then become available from the keyboard control panel. After Multilingual Support is installed follow the instructions in the section above to add your language and keyboard layout. In Windows NT and 2000 support for these languages is included in the standard installation.

 Additional Information

For more information about language support consult the following online help topics.

Word Help Topics

  • What's new with multilingual support?

  • International features in Word

  • Insert symbols or special characters

  • Type international characters

  • Check the spelling of text in another language

Windows Help Topics

  • Multilanguage Support

  • To add a keyboard language or layout

  • To change the keyboard layout for an installed keyboard language

Copyright 2002-2007 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

1 Comments on "Using Foreign Languages in Microsoft Windows and Word"

Martin A. said:

This was actually more helpful than the microsoft site! Many thanks. -Martin

Feb 15, 2008 1:35:18 PM Link to this comment

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