Alt+3 (#) character no longer appearing.

Question

Level 1

8 points

Alt+3 (#) character no longer appearing.

I have no idea what i did, but i can no longer invoke the # character.

I know it's Alt+3. I use it all the time in Twitter and coding. I really need this little character!

I know it's not a broken key. It does'nt work on my usb keyboard, or my MPB keyboard.

and I can easily press '3' and even 'shift+3' = £, I know alt is not broken, here's a bunch of character using alt: å¬†∑´^

So something has killed the hash character or rerigged it.

I have gone to system preferences and restored to default all keyboard shortcuts. Still no luck!

Is there any other way i can reset the alt+3 to give me my beloved hash back?

Thanks!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Feb 17, 2012 5:04 AM

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Answer 1

fane_j

Level 4

3,704 points

Feb 17, 2012 6:49 AM in response to rgbk444

Sounds like you're using a British keyboard. Go to Language & Text > Input Sources. Check if the British key layout is enabled. Enable Keyboard & Character Viewer; select “Show Input menu in menu bar.” Make sure the British key layout is active.

<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.7/en/mh35878.html>

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,542 points

Feb 17, 2012 7:14 AM in response to rgbk444

rgbk444 wrote:

I have no idea what i did, but i can no longer invoke the # character.

If Alt + 3 is producing nothing at all, then go to system preferences/speech and double check that this has not be set as the trigger for either Text to Speech or Speech Recognition.

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Answer 3

rgbk444 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 17, 2012 8:42 AM in response to rgbk444

Hi to you both. I'm afriad that neither of those helped.

At my wits end.

I've done lots of digging around and just cant find what replaced Alt+3

Very interstingly, alt+1, alt+2 and alt+3 all dont work, but ¢∞§¶••ªº–≠

i.e. alt 4— 10 do.

?!?

Even if i stupidly rejgged it months back to some app and forgot about it, it shoudl at least invoke the thing i'd set it too?!

This could be the most banal, frustratingly annoying mac bug i've yet encountered in the 15 years of using it!

Please help!!

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Answer 4

rgbk444 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 17, 2012 9:26 AM in response to rgbk444

OK so it's the super ******** FileXaminer App I downloaded a few weeks back for soem reason or another. By deafult, they have alt 1 2 3 as shortcuts. Even though they never showed the app up anyway?!

Man, i hate it.

App developers::::: think before you asign keyboard shortcuts to such major keys.

Check international usage of those keys before you think you're being clever!

Ack. What a waste of my time.

#######################################################################

Thank you.

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Answer 5

fane_j

Level 4

3,704 points

Feb 17, 2012 3:32 PM in response to rgbk444

rgbk444 wrote:

App developers::::: think before you asign keyboard shortcuts

I've tested FileXaminer some time ago. The shortcuts are off by default. You have to enable them yourself, one by one, which you must have done at some point.

Even though they never showed the app up anyway?!

The FileXaminer manual states that the shortcuts only work in Finder (or PathFinder).

But I agree that there are two big issues with FileXaminer's hot keys. First, the default choice breaks Mac rules -- on Mac, the ⌥ modifier key alone (unlike the Alt key on Win) is not supposed to be used for shortcuts. Second, the FileXaminer's hot key server process should not disable them in other apps, which it does. I would count this as a bug.

Btw, it's OT, but there's no Alt key on a Mac keyboard. You're talking about the Option or ⌥ key. It is also labelled "alt" for convenience when working with emulators or virtual machines. See

<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2514>

In Windows, I used to...	On a Mac, I can...
[…]	[…]
Use these keys as shortcuts:	Use these keys as alternatives:
[…]	[…]
Alt key	⌥ Option key

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Answer 6

panca

Level 1

4 points

Dec 8, 2015 1:33 PM in response to rgbk444

Yep man, thanks!!! It's fab that one can find such randomly occurring issues via Google!

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