I have been trying to set up my new computer, and for the most part I am happy with it, but I do have some minor issues I have not been able to fix. its mostly the keyboard, as somehow when I try the key for the apostrophe and the quotation marks, I get this instead: è È.
I have tried to reconfigure the keyboard, but so far, no luck.
It is not a major thing, I can live without them, but it is kind of annoying, and it has slowed my writing.
Ah, well,
Comments
Windows 10 to Windows 11 Transition
Perhaps you remember the debacle that my getting a new computer was. It is an HP Tower with an i5 core. My Keyboard is a USB one and the mouse is wireless. Microsoft claims that an AI 'learns' over time, though I have no idea how all that happens. I will have to say that in the time since mid May, things have gotten better. Just hang in there.
{ partial reply elsewhere }
This "feel like" a "Locale" problem.
Google searches like:
"Setting Locale on Windows 11", or
"how to tell my computer I use Canadian English"
may help more than I can.
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(Since I'm in USA) my next thought would be to ask at Best Buy/Geek Squad.
Best Buy Portland Oregon
Geek Squad has been less than helpful.
Keyboard layout not type
To configure the keyboard, there are two (in numbers “2”) different settings with distinct functionality!
And since I have divorced M$ after WinXP, I can not tell you the exact menu sequence to those settings. But I will try to explain them in a generic way that should help you find what you need.
Keyboard Type: Defines the hardware brand and model of your keyboard. Some brands have some specific quirks and need a proprietary driver to access their features. Though now-a-days keyboards have become rather standardized and generic in their interface output, so it is often enough to select one of the “Generic” types. Just make the number of keys and the shape of the “Enter”/“Return” key match as close as possible. Depending on the layout most current keyboards have 104 or 105 keys, though 101 and 102 keys were also very common in the not so distant past.
Keyboard Layout: Defines the assignment of characters to each key. And this is where you make it easy or hard to use more than just the basic 26 letters defined by “US English”. Some layouts define so-called dead keys that do not advance the cursor, but allow you to compose letters with two keystrokes. On the box in which your keyboard was shipped to you, there should be a marking for the layout. If you configure the keyboard layout of your operating system to what is marked on the box, then what is etched on the keyboard should be what appears on the screen.
For example: Comparing the “German (Germany)” with the “English (US)” layout the most noticeable differences are “Y” and “Z” are interchanged, and the key to the right of “P” as well as two keys to the right of “L” contain the three Umlaut letters “Ä”, “Ö” and “Ü”. The German layout is also referred to as “QWERTZ” were the English layout is often referred to as “QWERTY”. (Just look at the leftmost six keys in the top row of letter keys on your keyboard.) :-P
Since I learned to touch type way back in the 1980s and the typewriter I learned it on had a Spanish layout, I prefer to configure my operating systems to the “Spanish (Spain)” layout no matter what is etched on the keyboard. This layout has the added benefit of giving me up to four character per key. That is how I can so easily use the curly (or typographic) opening and closing quotation marks [“”] instead of the straight double quotes ["] of the standard typewriter keyboard. As well as several other characters including some of the “weird” letters of the Nordic languages.
I hope this helps you find the settings you need.
Jessica Nicole
Back in the day...
Before I retired over ten years ago, I was employed to perform desktop computer support. One of the things we kept were extra keyboards and mice, since they fairly often required replacement. First we standardized on Compaq computers, later Dell, and finally Hewlett-Packard. As I recall, it was during the HP era that I discovered that one keyboard in our inventory, instead of a US layout, was labelled Canadian/Canadien, I assumed to allow bilingualism. It might be worth discovering what keyboard you have, as well as determining what layout your computer thinks you have.