Solved Different ways of entering foreign characters in Windows?

Slightly unusual question here. I somehow enabled some kind of special keyboard feature somewhere that allows me to enter foreign characters like ö and ü by using some kind of key sequence. I want to turn it off but have no idea how I even turned it on (some months back). Traditionally I'd have used the Character map or the ALT+nnn code (which is what I did to get ö and ü just then).

At some point I was browsing through options and saw the ability to enter those characters more easily and thought "yes please, I'll have some of that". The trouble is, I don't remember what the sequences were to get the characters, and I'm seemingly randomly getting those characters appear as I'm typing English text and I want it to stop.

I've looked in the regular Windows keyboard settings and language options and can't find it there. I also use PowerToys but can't find it in there. Finally, I have DisplayFusion Pro but can't find it in there either.

Anyone know of some method of getting these characters that might involve use of shift or control or alt or some combination along with the base letter and where such a thing is configured?

Do these ring any bells? Found at the ministry of intwebzforimportantsearches. However neither may be correct.

If you go to Settings -> Time and language -> Language you can add a language.

Add English (United States International) and switch to it. You can now use the right alt (now known as alt gr) to type special keys, such as altgr+w = å, alt-gr + shift + ; for ° or you can type "o to type ö and "u as ü, or ~n as ñ, 'e as é, `e as è, 'c as ç ^i as î. To type the ", you type " followed by pressing space, or alternatively switch back to your other keyboard language.

OR

- turn on alternate key/character: Press and hold left ctrl+shift and then tap right shift key once
- turn off alternate key/character: Press and hold left ctrl+shift and then tap right shift key twice


OR

How to turn ON or Off Secondary Shift Characters Lock in Windows 11/10

If the Secondary Shift Characters Lock gets activated or deactivated, follow these tips to turn it ON or OFF in Windows 11/10.

www.thewindowsclub.com

Hi antspants, I just noticed that the reply I thought I'd posted to your message doesn't seem to be here. Weird.

Thanks for those suggestions, but it's none of those.

maybe it is listed here

Stexred said:

maybe it is listed here

How to type special characters on a Windows 11 PC

There are two ways to add special characters to a Windows PC.

www.theverge.com

Click to expand...

Thanks for that, it's a good resource. Unfortunately it wasn't any of those options. But you did spur me on to try again to find out just what the heck it is. If it wasn't on that verge link then it simply HAD to be extra software. That led me back to it being either Power Toys or DisplayFusion. A google of "power toys foreign characters" led me to the Quick Accent feature. By default, you trigger a foreign character by holding down the letter, like an a or o or u and then press space (the default trigger character) and it insert an ä or ö or ü instead. That's why it was happening randomly, I was probably typing too fast and hitting that space bar while still having another key pressed and getting it triggering. It also explains how when I first read that whilst going through all the Power Toys options like a year ago I must have spent 5 seconds thinking "yeah, sounds like a good idea, I don't see that getting in the way at all" and enabled it and promptly forgot about it.

Anyone else thinking of getting Power Toys and using Quick Accent, it definitely works. Just make sure you don't forget you did it because it might start bugging you when it triggers when you don't want it to. Btw, the description says it shows "an overlay to select accented characters" but I think if you weren't waiting for it and continued typing it goes away real quick and chooses the default character.

I use an app called AllChars, but it won't work on forums such as this one.
It does work in MS Word & Gmail though which is where I use it the most.

AllChars

For the most common ones I need I pin a shortcut to the Character Map from Control Panel on the Taskbar then click on and Copy the character I want and Paste where I want, e.g. the Degree character °, on the Notebooks without the Number pad or Alt + 248 on Number pads.