I'm using the international keyboard to type in diacritics and accents (for French). I can type just about everything except the ligature œ. Does anyone know how to do this in the international keyboard without using the alt code?
á é í ó ú ç ö
but no œ :(.
Edit: Since this is a Famous Question (10,000+ views) and the Windows International Keyboard doesn't have the œ character, we can assume the OP meant the OS was Windows.
Although the character is not present on the US-intl keyboard on Windows, if you have a number keypad you can type it using Alt + 0140 and Alt + 0156 for the uppercase and lowercase letters respectively.
Œ and œ can be inputted using the US International keyboard with the combination AltGr+X or AltGr+x respectively.
As a comment reports, the above quotation was removed from the Wikipedia article on 25 July 2012. It is not clear whether AltGr+x=œ was always untrue or whether the behaviour changed to accommodate the use of Alt+x to convert preceding four hex characters to a single Unicode character.
Some applications provide support for entry of characters beyond the simple accented Latin-1 characters.
In Microsoft Word, "œ" is entered using ctrl + shift + & then o in quick succession. Some word processors such as MS Word can automatically correct French words like soeur to sœur, but in most other applications (e.g. an instant messenger, or a browser) the word will not be corrected.
In Vim (text editor), use Ctrl-K then 'o' then 'e' in succession. (or 'O' and 'E' for upper-case).
Vim has a very good and extensible set of digraphs. You can also use it as a text editor in web-browsers by means of the ItsAllText plugin or TextAreaConnect, thus bringing digraphs to web-applications.
Quotes are from Wikipedia
The correct answer is actually AltGR+K, although it doesn't work on all computers. I have had most sucess on laptops. Click here for more ways to type Œ and œ.
On my OS X version (Yosemite) the œ ligature can be produced using ⌥ + q (or shift + ⌥ + q for Œ) while using the US International-PC keyboard.
« À CURAÇAO et à SÃO PAULO, Éric n'a pas prêté £1 + $1 = 2.22€ à Françoise Spaßmann »
The title above is what I just typed, at normal speed and without remembering or using any code, on my SIMPLE and STANDARD "US" hardware keyboard, in Windows with the software Keyboard Layout set to "US International". As "RedGrittyBrick" accurately pointed, this lets me write just as fast and easily all the most used characters in French, German, Spanish, including all the upper case accentuated ones or others like french guillemets, EXCEPTED the 2 (FR-only AFAIK) "oe" and "OE". Details are clearly explained for all OSes in US International Keyboard layout, most of them work in Windows.
This is the only way to efficiently write proper French or German or Spanish; try to write my title above, at normal speed, with an "AZERTY" so-called "French" keyboard (please don't laugh) or on a "QWERTZ" so-called "German" keyboard (please don't cry) ;) ; these european so-called "keyboards" are actually jokes and if they are almost the only used it is because most people give up writing properly thus accept e.g. to drop accents on upper case letters; the (very few) of current French (or DE or SP) who efficiently write proper French are actually using US keyboards. So have I done intensively since 1977 while developing large sci-eng programs (no IT kbds other than US existed then) up to now 2016 (never could accept the downgrade FR or DE "keyboards" actually are).
The lack of "œ" and "Œ" isn't actually a problem since they get more and more replaced everywhere with "oe" and "OE", with no consequence at all on pronunciation or clarity. The lengthening (2 chars instead of 1) is NOT a drawback in French, which is a "verbose" language: when the phrase we are thinking of speaking is "short", i.e. "only" twice the length in Latin or 1.5 than in English, we at once instinctively feel bad and soon find ways of making it longer - yes, and I am very well placed to make you quite sure that this is the very truth! ;)
Versailles, Thu 21 Jan 2016 20:00:00 +0100
It's crazy that Microsoft overlooked that diacritic. You can use the US International keyboard as the starting point to create your own custom keyboard that does include it. (disclaimer: I haven't tried it myself.) Use the info here: Create your own keyboard layout BTW, that ctrl + shift + & thing didn't work for me.
Faster and more complete Universal keyboards
A - Notepad++
The few characters (including the dreaded "œ" and "Œ") that can't be typed in a bare Windows using my « À CURAÇAO et à SÃO PAULO... » previous post, can using a Character Map in a couple paid applications like MS Office. But they can also in Notepad++, which is free, powerful, and easy; just go "Edit > Character Panel"; finding the characters you need is tedious the first times but it becomes soon easier as you remember where they are in the list, and that list does hold all the ones you may need (e.g. "œ" and "Œ" under Nos 156 and 140, but all others are there too). However those special chars, no matter how rare, still need to be double-clicked one by one in the Character Panel, which is far from the no-remembering typing at normal speed.
B - 3-D Keyboard 2.52
In ~1995-2010 I installed on many PCs (family or work) a little, powerful yet easy and inexpensive utility that let me very easily program the keyboard to complete it my way, making that keyboard complete and reliable while much faster, easier and productive than the various solutions above. That utility was 3-D Keyboard 2.52, made by a man very kind, helpful and efficient, who had worked on most keyboards in many central Europe countries and languages, where the problem is particularly complicate, and who was able nevertheless to very intelligently sort it all into a very simple clear easy yet quite precise, complete and reliable way. He most probably made a good choice of the place where the bit flow traveling from the mechanical keys to the document being typed is intercepted so to make the key edits fast and reliable.
Unfortunately most Windows utilities, for keyboard or else, were designed for 32bit Windows and couldn't work in 64bit; and most developers, somewhat abandoned by Microsoft (who failed to fill its explicit or implicit promises), stopped developing thus did NOT write the 64bit versions. So was the case of 3-D Keyboard 2.52. You can still download it for now from Fingertip Software -> FTS Downloads or Cyrillic Downloads, but you won't be able to use it without a license, which is no more for sale. If you have nevertheless a way to get a license number (and a 32bit system), take the good old 2.52 version, as the newer 3.02 is not as good (probably written after the author lost interest).
C - KbdEdit
Under newer configurations, that are mostly 64bit, I found very few applications, of which none as friendly, intelligent or efficient as 3-D Keyboard. The most approaching, KbdEdit, while more powerful, made apparently a different choice of the point where to intercept the bit flow. As a result KbdEdit remains unable to catch some of the key strikes (all the "Alt" used in MS Office, and a few others), and doesn't reach the same level of simplicity and reliablity; e.g. KbdEdit relativeley often suddenly sends quite unexpected keys so you have to kill it in a hurry or it could do some maneuvers unexpected hence dangerous. I personally stopped it definitely after months of using it a lot. TIA to anyone who would come with a better solution.
Versailles, Thu 21 Jan 2016 22:46:20 +0100
The above answers are incorrect. Œ and œ can be typed with AltGR + K on the US International Keyboard.
See http://dry.sailingissues.com/us-international-keyboard-layout.html for a complete listing.
Compose+o+e. It works on any layout, if you know the compose key, which is oftenShift+AltGrorShift+Right Alt. Mine isScroll Locknow.