Keyboard typing weird letters and symbols

Replying to prv/hyper to make sure people see their solution is noticeable

I noticed that swiping from the side on my touchpad seems to enable this mode.

Seems like a bug where a certain type of input traps the system in command or option mode. It might be worth paying attention to your touchpad, or checking if the buttons are working properly - not stuck depressed or something.

Last night I started to have a problem of symbols appearing and other odd things happening when I typed on my keyboard. I first changed the USB keyboard, to no avail. Then I went to my wife's MAC BOOK PRO, same problem. I tried all of the suggestions I could find on forums like this.. Then my wife came in and she typed on both computers with no problems. My wife who is not all that computer savvy said it was my hands. I was skeptical but pursued it further. I found out that it only happened when I typed characters with my left hand.

She was right. Come to find out I had had surgery on my left hand earlier in the day and the bulky bandage was hitting the option and control keys inadvertently. She had had the same problem in the past when when she let her hands relax and rest on the keyboard.

Needless to say I sighed a great sigh of relief and gave my intuitive wife a humble thanks. Sometimes intuitiveness trumps technical savvy.

my keyboard does it and before a 20 hrs travel with the battery on and works perfect11111111111 (until some time like this), may be i'm using charger from another model. Gretings to the mac world1111111

Did anyone find something that works? My new MacbookAir (7 months old) has been typing in symbols for a few weeks. I tried updating to Yosemite, reinstalling, pressing Cmd+Opt+PR and Cmd+Opt+P... I got it to go back to normal once, but I closed the computer (not shut it down) and when I opened it back up it returned to symbols. When I look at the system preferences, it says it's in English. I am currently traveling in Mexico and Central America with no plans on returning to the US any time soon (not to mention the inconsistent internet connection)- I really need this computer to work! I appreciate all of your suggestions..

Your question about the "asdf" and "åß∂ƒ" correctly identified my problem. In my case the problem was with a USB keyboard that I use at my desk with a big monitor hooked up to my laptop. The Macbook keyboard worked fine but the USB keyboard was doing the åß∂ƒ thing. I tried cleaning and shaking etc without luck. Finally I just typed asdf with the option/alt key down, one at a time on both sides, then tried asdf again without the option/alt key and that did it. I don't know if I was lucky or not, but it seems to be working fine now. I suspect it wasn't software since the built in keyboard on the laptop worked fine. Thanks.

Now it happens as well to my Macbook Air: I type "asdf" and I get instead åß∂ƒ. Pressing alt-+cmd+P+R does not work. I am not able to fix this, the language of the keyboard is correct. I noticed also that three-finger gestures do not work anymore.

I had the same problem with my older apple keyboard a1048, in my case command key was stuck, so I took a knife and pulled it up. now everything is working fine.

After having the same problem with my Macbook Air were the keyboard would only type in symbols, I opened the screen keyboard and noticed that both option/alt keys where both being pressed down changing the keyboard to the symbols. I tuck the keys off and cleaned underneath but that did not work. I did notice that if I hold the 0 button down the letters appeared on the keyboard and I could type normally again. Which is a bit of a pain but you can still type when trying to search for things.

After searching on-line for hours i come across this program that allows you to customise your keyboard so I thought i'd give it a try. I installed it and everything works fine now. I don't know if this will work for everyone but hopefully it will help other and has fixed my problem for good. Here is the link to the program - https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

Was go close to replacing the keyboard.

In Microsoft Word

Select "Word" (upper left, next to apple)

Preferences > General > Uncheck "WYSIWYG font and style menus"

worked for me, cheers!

Alexxander Chadwick wrote:

In Microsoft Word

Select "Word" (upper left, next to apple)

Preferences > General > Uncheck "WYSIWYG font and style menus"

It's hard to imagine how this could do anything about the problem of your keyboard typing åß∂ƒ when it is supposed to be typing asdfg. Is that really the problem you had and fixed?

This fixed all the crazy typing that was going on. Thank you!!

I have this problem also. I plugged in a USB keyboard, but it doesn't work properly either, which tells me it's a software issue, right? The real problem is that my computer is locked. I can't type in the proper password, because the keyboard won't type the right letters. HELP!

What finally worked for me was to add several keyboards in System Preferences > Language and Region > Keyboard Preferences, then delete the US keyboard and add it back. Ugh!

I've been experiencing this today, and it was a bit of a panic nightmare while I worried about viruses, drive failures and hacking attempts, I can tell you. But it's not any of that.

Symptoms included windows randomly closing each other to remain the only window open on the desktop, odd symbols instead of the letters pressed - such as å∫∂´ƒ rather than abcdefg and ¡€#¢∞ instead of 12345. And of course it prevented log-in attempts and in one case brought up a OS reinstall options at reboot.

The issue lies with the bluetooth keyboard, and removing the batteries and reinserting them temporarily cleared the problems. It's something to do with the alt option key being down, and I guess there's some dirt under one of those two keys.

Hint to self: If you don't own a corded keyboard yet, get one, because a) this, and b) there are power-up options you can't do with a bluetooth keyboard and one day you may need them.

I forgot to add that after that, you need to do a regular restart......Otherwise you are in safeboot mode......Carry on.