<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
      xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"
      type="topic" style="task"
      id="tips-specialchars">

  <info>
    <link type="guide" xref="tips"/>
    <link type="seealso" xref="keyboard-layouts"/>

    <revision pkgversion="3.8.2" version="0.3" date="2013-05-18" status="review"/>
    <revision pkgversion="3.10" date="2013-11-01" status="review"/>
    <revision pkgversion="3.26" date="2017-11-27" status="review"/>

    <credit type="author">
      <name>Shaun McCance</name>
      <email>shaunm@gnome.org</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="editor">
      <name>Michael Hill</name>
      <email>mdhillca@gmail.com</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="editor">
      <name>Ekaterina Gerasimova</name>
      <email>kittykat3756@gmail.com</email>
    </credit>
    <credit type="editor">
      <name>Andre Klapper</name>
      <email>ak-47@gmx.net</email>
    </credit>

    <include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>

    <desc>Type characters not found on your keyboard, including foreign alphabets, mathematical symbols, and dingbats.</desc>
  </info>

  <title>Enter special characters</title>

  <p>You can enter and view thousands of characters from most of the world’s
  writing systems, even those not found on your keyboard. This page lists
  some different ways you can enter special characters.</p>

  <links type="section">
    <title>Methods to enter characters</title>
  </links>

  <section id="characters">
    <title>Characters</title>
    <p>GNOME comes with a character map application that allows you to
    find and insert unusual characters, including emoji, by browsing
    character categories or searching for keywords.</p>

    <p>You can launch <app>Characters</app> from the Activities overview.</p>

  </section>

  <section id="compose">
    <title>Compose key</title>
    <p>A compose key is a special key that allows you to press multiple keys
    in a row to get a special character. For example, to type the accented
    letter <em>é</em>, you can press <key>compose</key> then <key>'</key>
    then <key>e</key>.</p>
    <p>Keyboards don’t have specific compose keys. Instead, you can define
    one of the existing keys on your keyboard as a compose key.</p>

    <note style="important">
      <p>You need to have <app>Tweaks</app> installed on your computer to
      change this setting.</p>
      <if:if test="action:install" xmlns:if="http://projectmallard.org/if/1.0/">
        <p><link style="button" action="install:gnome-tweaks">Install
        <app>Tweaks</app></link></p>
      </if:if>
    </note>

    <steps>
      <title>Define a compose key</title>
      <item>
        <p>Open the <gui xref="shell-introduction#activities">Activities</gui>
        overview and start typing <gui>Tweaks</gui>.</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Click <gui>Tweaks</gui> to open the application.</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Click the <gui>Keyboard &amp; Mouse</gui> tab.</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Click <gui>Disabled</gui> next to the <gui>Compose Key</gui>
        setting.</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Turn the switch on in the dialog and pick the keyboard shortcut you
        want to use.</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Tick the checkbox of the key that you want to set as the Compose
        key.</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Close the dialog.</p>
      </item>
      <item>
        <p>Close the <gui>Tweaks</gui> window.</p>
      </item>
    </steps>

    <p>You can type many common characters using the compose key, for
    example:</p>

    <list>
      <item><p>Press <key>compose</key> then <key>'</key> then a letter to
      place an acute accent over that letter, such as <em>é</em>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Press <key>compose</key> then <key>`</key> (back tick) then a
      letter to place a grave accent over that letter, such as
      <em>è</em>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Press <key>compose</key> then <key>"</key> then a letter to
      place an umlaut over that letter, such as <em>ë</em>.</p></item>
      <item><p>Press <key>compose</key> then <key>-</key> then a letter to
      place a macron over that letter, such as <em>ē</em>.</p></item>
    </list>
    <p>For more compose key sequences, see <link
    href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key#Common_compose_combinations">the
    compose key page on Wikipedia</link>.</p>
  </section>

<section id="ctrlshiftu">
  <title>Code points</title>

  <p>You can enter any Unicode character using only your keyboard with the
  numeric code point of the character. Every character is identified by a
  four-character code point. To find the code point for a character, look it up
  in the <app>Characters</app> application. The code point is the four characters
  after <gui>U+</gui>.</p>

  <p>To enter a character by its code point, press
  <keyseq><key>Ctrl</key><key>Shift</key><key>U</key></keyseq>, then type the
  four-character code and press <key>Space</key> or <key>Enter</key>. If you often
  use characters that you can’t easily access with other methods, you might find
  it useful to memorize the code point for those characters so you can enter
  them quickly.</p>

</section>

  <section id="layout">
    <title>Keyboard layouts</title>
    <p>You can make your keyboard behave like the keyboard for another language,
    regardless of the letters printed on the keys. You can even easily switch
    between different keyboard layouts using an icon in the top bar. To learn
    how, see <link xref="keyboard-layouts"/>.</p>
  </section>

<section id="im">
  <title>Input methods</title>

  <p>An Input Method expands the previous methods by allowing to enter
  characters not only with keyboard but also any input devices. For instance
  you could enter characters with a mouse using a gesture method, or enter
  Japanese characters using a Latin keyboard.</p>

  <p>To choose an input method, right-click over a text widget, and in the menu
  <gui>Input Method</gui>, choose an input method you want to use. There is no
  default input method provided, so refer to the input methods documentation to
  see how to use them.</p>

</section>

</page>
