does anyone want to insert french letters?

[Penny]

sorry I could not find a single definition of what they're called.

I'm referring to à é ô î € and such , like l'entrée would appear if typed on a french keyboard.

LOL I may not know how to spell or pronounce them but I can insert the "mark"

[andi]

Penny I now understand what you mean but I had to read it through first, where I come from a "french letter" is something rather different LOL

[annettecinca]

Funny Andi! Penny, how about "French accent"? This is how I've done it, but if anyone knows an easier way, let us know! For some reason this method only works when typing on the numeric keypad (on the right of most US keyboards) and won't work using the numbers across the top of the keyboard.

For the letter or special character you want, hold the ALT key then enter the corresponding 3 or 4 digit code as follows:

• a with grave accent - à 133 - À 0192
  a with circumflex - â 131 - Â 0194
  a with tréma - ä 132 - Ä 142
  a e ligature - æ 145 - Æ 146
  c with cedilla - ç 135 - Ç 128
  e with acute accent - é 130 - É 144
  e with grave accent - è 138 - È 0200
  e with circumflex - ê 136 - Ê 0202
  e with tréma - ë 137- Ë 0203
  i with circumflex - î 140 - Î 0206
  i with tréma - ï 139 - Ï 0207
  o with circumflex - ô 147 - Ô 0212
  o e ligature - œ 0156 - Œ 0140
  u with grave accent - ù 151 - Ù 0217
  u with circumflex - û 150 - Û 0219
  u with tréma - ü 129 - Ü 154
  French quotation marks - « 174 - » 175
  Euro symbol - € 0128
  
• 
  
• 
  

[joan1]

Oh my , just reading that hurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To think all I learned was 'acute' and 'grave' a e i o u.
In school we were taught, _ " a cute " guy went UP the hill --- and fell DOWN to his "grave"LOL ,, grammar is never my thing,, at least when one talks you just have to have correct pronounciation.

[Penny]

If you know how to copy/paste then you can do so for the instructions I am posting (following) and put into a Word Document page for easier reference.
This is part of my Keyboarding lesson plan (this part is still a work in progress as I still need to format parts and something will not copy over anyway).

[Penny]

It takes several steps but once you learn it will be very easy.
Open Word (or a new page)
When you open you should see the Insertion Point (which on mine is a flashing I) I usually hit return a couple of times to give me room for what I do last.
Click on Insert (from Toolbar menu)
Click on Symbol (2nd choice)
This will bring up a window with lots of symbols in it.
If the font showing is different than what you are using then change to it.
Scroll till you find the one you want. such as à or Á
Click on symbol you want then click Insert button, the symbol should appear on page, or you can double click on symbol., you can do this for each symbol or letter without exiting symbol window.
When you open this window and decide you do not want to use then (yet) click the Cancel button.
When you click on a symbol you will see a on ShortCut Key and to the right of that is a code such as when you click on à it will show Alt+0224 . What this means is hold down the Alt and using the numeric keypad type in the number combination. the + means plus not type the +.
If you use the first method of inserting symbol on to page by clicking on symbol.
you can copy /paste into document, email, post, etc.
once I have inserted my symbols on page I put a space after to make it easier to copy.
Place the Insertion Point (your cursor/arrow is what you move with mouse, the Insertion Point is what you move with keyboard or other keys such as Home)
holding down the Shift key move right arrow to highlight symbol or letter you want to insert., if you hold down Shift Key and repeatedly click on right arrow it will highlight until you stop. Other method is to hold down Shift Key and hit end. Since I only want to insert one symbol at a time, I use the Shift Key and click on Right Arrow once.
Then hold down Ctrl Key and the letter C key (the C is for copy). then go to email, post, etc. put Insertion Point when you want to insert this symbol and holding down Ctrl Key and the letter V key (this will insert symbol)
I use this method if I am only inserting a couple of symbols such as € or ₤.
However if I am inserting several (LOL trying to attempt to type many word with French accent marks) I leave Symbol Window open in Word and switch back to it, click on Symbol and see what Shortcut Code is. Quicker than copy/paste.

[Penny]

andi, LOL I forgot, but didn't need them in London.

[Penny]

annette_ I could not find English definition for a lot of the "accents" did find circumflex. this õ (accent above o) is a tilde in Spanish.
I would probably need a more complete French dictionary, mine is common usage. but I am going to copy to my "other French stuff" document.
I may go out to Amazon and see if I can find a French textbook.

[andi]

Its ok Penny, Its a very old fashioned term nowadays, I think it goes back to WW1 or WW2 not sure?

[Becky (Berkeleytravelers)]

I haven't actually tried this yet, but another thing that might work is once you get the properly accented word into your document, when you run spell check (in a Word document, not here) and it doesn't recognize the word you can hit "add to dictionary" and hopefully it then will become one of your choices in future -- i.e., if you then type it without the accent, it may bring up the accented word as a proper choice (although this would work only if the unaccented word is not one that it recognizes as correct . . . .)

Actually, I know someone who told me that her French improved (spelling and grammar) when she installed the French version of Word and it automatically showed her when things were wrong.

[parisfan2 (was 'paris-fantic')]

It's no good, I've resisted for two days now but I have to mention it. andiandgaz mentioned it, so please someone change the title of this to 'french characters'.
To us in the UK 'french letters' only means one thing - condoms (I that I don't get censored here), and the French have some similar phrase I beleive relating them to the English.
I know it's a bit childish, but it just leaps out of the screen at me!

[Happygoin]

You're kidding!! That's great! And no...no censoring here..we like fun stuff like that. Read about the Pope's testicles in a food thread.

[parisfan2 (was 'paris-fantic')]

True I'm afraid, dates form 1856 according to the Oxford dictionary so for most Englsih people it's common usage. Strangely, English English has this thing about using such terms - French Leave (going absent without permission), Dutch Auction (an auction where the outcome is known in advance) and a lot of people when they swear in front of peole they don't know very well say 'Excuse my French'.

[sistereurope]

Wow...what a multi-cultural exchange of knowledge we have going on around here.
I learn something new - and useful! - every day.
I thank you all for contributing to my worldly education! ;D