Pound key hash tag madness – Please help

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Level 1

51 points

Pound key hash tag madness – Please help

When I bought a 2021 MBP in the UK I was a little miffed to find that the bods in Cupertino decided that the hash tag was a more important symbol than the British pound and they re-designated the key combinations accordingly. Previously, shift+3 produced a pound key and option+3 produced a hash tag. Now these have been reversed. Shift+3 has precedence and is ingrained as muscle memory, so I keep producing a hash tag whenever I want a pound. Incredibly frustrating.

Can anyone advise how to restore order?

Thank you.

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Jun 3, 2022 1:15 AM

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Answer 1

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petelingo Author

Level 1

51 points

Jun 3, 2022 1:32 AM in response to petelingo

In a rare occurrence I think I've hit upon the answer. The issue seems to be that on newer Macs e.g. M1 MBP (2020+) the OS default keyboard input for UK is 'ABC'. This even lacks the € symbol. (Thanks Apple!)

To restore order, replace the 'ABC' keyboard with the 'ABC Extended' keyboard.

Shift+3 now produces a £ symbol

Option+2 now produces a € symbol.

Hallelujah!

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,420 points

Jun 3, 2022 2:55 AM in response to petelingo

You should just remove ABC extended via the minus button. The only one you want is the one call British. That is the one with £ on Shift 3. Neither ABC nor ABC Extended do that.

(The active keyboard is determined by the icon you see in the input menu at top right of the screen, not by anything you have selected in the Input Sources pane).

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Pound key hash tag madness – Please help

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