Can't access some special characters such as the French Franc

By Notechie, 13 February, 2022

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

I am having trouble accessing some special characters, such as the French Franc, on my iMac. A lot of special characters use the option and one other key. I've found information that says to use the option and four other keys but this doesn't work. The character pallet is not obvious as to how to use it.

Options

Comments

By Wenwei on Monday, February 28, 2022 - 12:48

Hi,

You need to go to system preferences > keyboard > input sources > add your desired keyboards - I'd suggest US international unless you have more extensive needs.

From the input source tab, you can either add keyboard layouts to your status bar to toggle between multiple layouts or use the VO pass through > caps lock to toggle your keyboard layouts.

It's much easier to memorize the option + key + vowel that corresponds with French accents instead of memorizing all of their unicode values-e.g., acute = option + e, circumflex = option + i + e, etc.

Hope this helps. I don't have my Mac in front of me, so I can't write step-by-step directions since I did this years ago. But if you need addditional assistance I am happy to help.