How do I include accents to the vocals or to the "c" for portuguese or "n" for spanish with my external keyboard?

Hold down Function+ option + letter you want to place accent or tilde on "ñ". It works.

Hold down the "c" key or the "n" key for several seconds and then slide your finger to what you want.

External, not on screen.

Usually those characters are done with 'alt codes'....like i think holding down the alt while you type 167 or 0167 makes a character

I have no idea if the iPad acknowledges the alt code or not.

I know there are downloadable charts online, you can try typing it with the alt key and see what happens

Dang. You're right and I also don't know about the alt code recognition.

It doesnt' totally work. I tried with my Zagg keyboard and while holding down the alt button i got all sorts of funky symbols....yen, copyright, Pi, etc, but not many accented letters.

There may be a tweak with keyboard langage (if you can change that), or you may need to use the external to type and then turn it off and go back to use the onscreen to edit/tweak it.

Unless there's an app out there to allow for alternative characters

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codealt.html

this site (which just refers to the alt codes in general) says you have to use the number key on the right side of a keyboard. If you don't have the 'extra' ten key portion then it won't work to use the numbers on the top

so, maybe, an external bluetooth keyboard with the numberic keypad might be able to do them

I don't have my ZAGG KB anymore. I wasn't using it so I gave it away. However, I wonder if it's comparable to the Mac where you hit a funky keystroke (that apparently does the wrong thing) and you follow that with the "c" or the "n" and, voila, the accented character appears.

For example,

Option-n produces ˜

However,

Option-n followed by n produces ñ

http://gigaom.com/apple/ipad-keyboard-shortcuts/

According to other sources, holding down the key should work.

Have you tried changing the international settings?

I tried that and it didn't work. Not in the case of holding down the option N and getting all the varieties of accented n's like you could iwth the onscreen.

The international settings is probably teh best way.

Yeah, you're probably right.

Skydiver119 wrote:

Usually those characters are done with 'alt codes'

Apple products never use alt codes, that's for Windows. Apple use deadkeys on hardware keyboards.

lanbotero wrote:

How do I include accents to the vocals or to the "c" for portuguese or "n" for spanish with my external keyboard?

It depends on how you have set the keyboard layout on your iPad. If you are using English and then US under the Hardware category, you would use the standard Mac deadkeys.

ç is made via Option/alt + c

ñ is made via Option/alt + n, then n

A list can be found at

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/diacritics.html

If you are using some other keyboard layout, let us know which one. Normally you would want to switch the keyboard to Spanish or Portuguese to get the proper spell check and autocorrection, but you could still choose US for the hardware layout if you want.

I don't know if other BT keyboards do this, but on my Zagg one it has a toggle to bring up the onscreen, so you can type out the 'regular' letters, then toggle up the onscreen, get your accented character, toggle it back down adn keep going.

Skydiver119 wrote:

toggle up the onscreen, get your accented character, toggle it back down adn keep going.

Do you have any problem using the standard deadkeys for accented characters on your Zagg? If you want you can even set the iPad to US International PC, where you just type ' and then e to get é, etc.

I don't know what you mean by "problem." I don't mind doing it, so in that case, no problem. It doesn't work with my copy of the Zagg. In that case, yes, big problem. So how does one set the Zagg to "US International PC?"

I never did figure out how to invoke the "US International PC." But the trick does work using a Zagg external keyboard set to Spanish (using the little world symbol), with the iPad 2 set with a Spanish keyboard enabled.

Here's what we have figured out so far: To get the n-ye (n with the little tilde hat), type the key just to the left of letter L (it has a colon & semi-colon). For all the vowel accents type the next key over (the double-quote and single-quote key). Nothing happens. But then type a vowel key and lo and behold the vowel appearas, wearing the accent. So what was one do if one WANTS a quote, colon, or semi-colon? We'll burn that bridge when we come to it, maybe one of the alt/control/command/squiggly-thing keys?

It would have cost the Zagg folks almost nothing to have posted instructions on their website, and only a little more to include instructions in the package.