[SOLVED] How to type other characters

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awolf

[SOLVED] How to type other characters

Post by awolf »

Coming from a Mac, I'm finding it really frustrating to not be able to type an em dash — something I use all the time. I also would like to easily get accents, and ñ symbols and ellipses…
How do I get this on LM KDE? I don't want to use a char-selector program for this if it means sorting through tons of oddities just to get these common items. I want access to these common items like I have on my Mac!
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
gordintoronto

Re: How to type other characters

Post by gordintoronto »

An example: to get a Copyright symbol, Type Ctrl-shift-U, then a9 and a space.

See Wikipedia, "List of Unicode characters."
awolf

Re: How to type other characters

Post by awolf »

Why does it have to be so complicated? I'll try that, but why can't it work like Mac, where that symbol is simply option-G. There are certain symbols that are used often (or should be), like em dash. I don't understand why it should be hard to just have a quick command for such things. The Mac approach works great. Nobody has ever bothered making a keyboard layout or whatever for Linux to get the same convenient type of situation?
awolf

Re: How to type other characters

Post by awolf »

Ok, I found more acceptible advice:
Under the advanced tab in keyboard layout settings, I just enabled the "compose key"
I use the menu key, but there were other options…

Then the items are closer to Mac-like simplicity. No crappy 3-key combo followed by some complex code and then a space.
Copyright, for example, is easy: press the compose key, type "O" then "C" (which is like the circle followed by the c), that's IT, three total key presses, and it's a logical thing to remember. Actually a number of variants, including 0 instead of O work as well!

I found this site listing the commands: http://fsymbols.com/keyboard/linux/compose/
But that's not thorough. It leaves out the ellipse for example… That's just compose and then two periods.

I'm happy with Linux now! I'd encourage everyone to give this advice about the compose key to people who ask this question like me in the future.
LindseyD.
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Re: How to type other characters

Post by LindseyD. »

It gets even better. As long as the font you're using has the character, you can make up your own compose-key combinations.

Just copy /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose (or whatever your language) to /home/yourusername/.Compose

Then you can edit the file and add the symbol and key combo you want. For example, I've added

<Multi_key> <o> <O> : "●" # Compose black bullet

IIRC, you'll have to log out and in again so the new file gets "registered."
Mint17 KDE
ben2talk

Re: [SOLVED] How to type other characters

Post by ben2talk »

Thanks - useful for me today. ©Ben
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