26th November 1999

A few Lockergnomies pointed out that 'extended' character creation functionality is already built-in to Windows, although you'll have to turn it on before you can use it. Open up the 'Keyboard' applet in your Control Panel, select the 'Language' tab, then pull up the Properties for the 'English (United States)' layout. Now, in the drop-down menu, change it from 'United States 101' to 'United States - International.' Now, instead of having to remember the code to make an accented lowercase E, you can type an apostrophe first and then the letter; Windows will transmogrify it for you. ~n will become an 'n' with a tilde over it; "u will become a 'u' with an umlaut mark over it. Special key sequences include: ALT+/ (upside-down question mark), ALT+1 (upside-down exclamation mark), and ALT+c (copyright symbol).