Does anyone else have this problem with the Windows international keyboard? Thread poster: philgoddard
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I use the American international keyboard, so for example to type é, I enter apostrophe + "e".
However, after a few hours each day, it stops working, so if I type apostrophe + "e", that's what appears on the screen.
I use Windows 7, but the same thing happened with XP on my previous laptop. I've found other people online with a similar problem, but I haven't found any satisfactory solutions.
Any ideas, anyone?
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| A possible solution | Nov 2, 2013 |
Hello,
a possible solution for the problem you are mentioning is to use the combination of keys [ALT]+[keypad number]. I use it very often, for example, if I have to write in Spanish or French (I normally use Italian keyboard).
Another thing you may want to check, is to see if you notice some changes in keyboard settings when using different applications (you should see the keyboard settings in the task bar).
Please note: the solution I suggest applies both to Win7 or WinXP,... See more Hello,
a possible solution for the problem you are mentioning is to use the combination of keys [ALT]+[keypad number]. I use it very often, for example, if I have to write in Spanish or French (I normally use Italian keyboard).
Another thing you may want to check, is to see if you notice some changes in keyboard settings when using different applications (you should see the keyboard settings in the task bar).
Please note: the solution I suggest applies both to Win7 or WinXP, hope it helps.
Kind Regards
Roberto ▲ Collapse
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Tony M
France
Local time: 21:31
Member
French to English
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SITE LOCALIZER | But problem for laptops | Nov 2, 2013 |
Roberto Lipani wrote:
a possible solution for the problem you are mentioning is to use the combination of keys [ALT]+[keypad number].
I too use this all the time, Roberto, but there is one snag: on a laptop without a num. pad, it is embedded in the main keyboard, and it becomes impossibly intricate to have to use Ctrl + Fn + embedded num. So I thought I'd be clever, and buy an outboard USB num. pad — ONLY the darned thing doesn't work for this particular operation! Grrrrr
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Heinrich Pesch 
Finland
Local time: 22:31
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
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| Can't you choose French keyboard setting? | Nov 3, 2013 |
From time to time it happens to me too, that the keyboard setting changes by itself from Finnish to English. If your target language is French, you could chose French as the setting and use the normal keyboard, where the accented characters are part of the main keyset.
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philgoddard
United States
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER
Yes, but I translate several languages and I don't want to be changing keyboards all the time.
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| You can hotkey it | Nov 3, 2013 |
To switch between English and Japanese, all I have to press is Alt + ~. I'm not sure how it would work for more than two languages, but it probably cycles through them? I can see how this would be annoying just to type a single diacritical character, though. It does make switching languages very easy though.
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| How about an external keyboard? | Nov 3, 2013 |
Hello everybody.
Yes, the issue is quite common. Actually I always use an external keyboard even when working on laptops (it is more comfortable, especially when you work for many hours.
@Tony M: you are right, it is not easy on laptops if the keypad is not available). Maybe an external keyboard would do the trick?
A nice Sunday for all of you
Regards
Roberto
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Rolf Keller
Germany
Local time: 21:31
English to German
| Is it a Windows problem anyway? | Nov 3, 2013 |
philgoddard wrote:
I use the American international keyboard, so for example to type é, I enter apostrophe + "e".
However, after a few hours each day, it stops working
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I've found other people online with a similar problem
The sticking point is "after a few hours each day". Do the other people you mentioned experience this?
An application software which you start after some time could change the keyboard settings. Or a malicious & stupid keybord logger intercepts the keyboard driver and tries to get your passwords etc.
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Giles Watson
Italy
Local time: 21:31
Italian to English
In memoriam | To toggle or not to toggle | Nov 3, 2013 |
Orrin Cummins wrote:
To switch between English and Japanese, all I have to press is Alt + ~. I'm not sure how it would work for more than two languages, but it probably cycles through them?
That's right.
If you need to type in more than one character set for long periods at a time, and can touch-type in all of them, then activating the appropriate Windows keyboards is probably the way to go (Alt+Cap is the shortcut to toggle through the three I use).
If you just use the odd non-standard character, the best solution is probably AutoHotkey (freeware).
HTH
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Tim Friese
United States
Local time: 14:31
Member (2013)
Arabic to English
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philgoddard wrote:
I use the American international keyboard, so for example to type é, I enter apostrophe + "e".
However, after a few hours each day, it stops working, so if I type apostrophe + "e", that's what appears on the screen.
I use Windows 7, but the same thing happened with XP on my previous laptop. I've found other people online with a similar problem, but I haven't found any satisfactory solutions.
Any ideas, anyone?
Hi Phil,
I too do much of my typing on the US international keyboard on windows 7, and I switch from it to the regular US-101 keyboard when I'm not working on foreign languages.
At the times when it stops working, have you tried clicking on the keyboard icon on the language bar to see what keyboard you're currently using? Alternatively have you tried entering the key combo to change keyboards? Every so often I change mine by accident, I think because some keyboard shortcuts in some programs overlap with the language and keyboard shortcuts.
For the record, on my default Windows 7 setup, Alt-Shift changes languages (I use English, Arabic, and Hebrew), and Ctl-Shift changes keyboards (between US and US-Intl).
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philgoddard
United States
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER
That sounds like an idea - I'll try it next time it happens.
I didn't know there was such a thing as a keyboard icon, but I've found it now.
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Tony M
France
Local time: 21:31
Member
French to English
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SITE LOCALIZER | Yes, took ages for me to realize! | Nov 3, 2013 |
Tim Friese wrote:
Every so often I change mine by accident, I think because some keyboard shortcuts in some programs overlap with the language and keyboard shortcuts.
Absolutely!
I find I do it all the time, and at first I was very puzzled; turn out is is applications like Wordfast that use a Ctrl+Shift+ Alt (or somesuch) shortcut, and my clumsy typing means I don't type all three keys at exactly the same time, resulting in an unintended language / keyboard change.
Luckily, a friend noticed what was happening while we were IM-ing, guessed what the problem was, and talked me through it.
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philgoddard
United States
German to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Tim/Tony/everyone | Nov 3, 2013 |
Thanks for your help. I didn't know it was possible to toggle between the normal and international keyboards, but that's clearly what's happening in my case, presumably because of something I'm pressing that I shouldn't be. Problem solved.
[Edited at 2013-11-03 20:27 GMT]
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