Accented characters doubling up

Question

Accented characters doubling up

Macbook pro Early 2015: Keyboard features: Accented characters / Word for Mac

When I attempt to insert an accented character by holding down the key and selecting the required letter, Word for Mac 2011 inserts both the unaccented AND the accented letter. For example, I want the German word für but get fuür.

This is a recent phenomenon. I have been adding accented characters without this problem for several years. The problem seems to have begun when I upgraded to El Capitan. Has something got reset along the way?

Thanks to anyone who can help. I am probably going to fail my language exams if I don't get it sorted out!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.5), Actually 10.11.5 but not listed

Posted on May 21, 2016 7:36 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

May 19, 2017 1:28 PM in response to Appelbaumttt

Appelbaumttt wrote:

Mine does it in all software that allows the shift and hold correction -- Safari and Text Edit are the ones I use.

I've never heard of anyone else with this problem in Apple apps. Could you give details of what happens in TextEdit if you hold down the a key until the popup is there, then release and hit the 1 key. Do it here à.

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

May 21, 2016 7:57 AM in response to markstainforth

DDoes this happen with any other app like Pages, TextEdit? If not, you could perhaps use them instead. How about Word 2016?

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Answer 3

May 21, 2016 8:49 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hi Tom,

At the moment it seems only to be Word 2011. It's OK in Mail, Safari and Pages.

Over the years though I have had a different problem with all these programmes and accented characters. Sometimes the accenting option just stops working and holding a key down just creates a repeat run of the letter. The only way to solve it is has been to reboot.

But the für / fuür problem is new.

I could try seeing if Pages or Word 2016 is any better but as I do a lot of multilingual work I am not optimistic that other language problems won't arise. Microsoft and Apple don't really get the idea of mutilinguality in my experience.

Thanks

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Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

May 21, 2016 10:24 AM in response to markstainforth

WOrd 2011 is bound to start acting up as your OS is upgraded, and nobody cares. I'd recommend you use something newer.

PRess and hold is cute, but the old option key shortcuts are faster and more reliable in my view, e.g option plus u then u produces ü.

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Answer 5

Duane

Level 10

124,293 points

May 21, 2016 11:47 AM in response to markstainforth

Do you have it upgraded your Word to the latest 14.6.4?

I just tried it and only duplicated this problem when I attempted it the first time. After that it worked correctly every time.

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Answer 6

May 21, 2016 3:20 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Goodness! With the number of accents I use that would be a nightmare!

Thanks anyway. I'll keep searching or maybe just go back to the PC.

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Answer 7

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

May 21, 2016 6:28 PM in response to markstainforth

SShortcuts work well if you mainly use the most common accents -- grave, acute, tilde, cedilla, umlaut, circumflex. For more you would have to use the abc extended or a language specific layout.

I'm curious what you would use in Windows for your needs.

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Answer 8

May 22, 2016 5:28 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hi Tom,

I write mainly in 5 languages but that includes about 20 different accented letters for which I would find hard to remember all the shortcuts. The press and hold has been a very beneficial development for me. I am assuming (maybe wrongly) that this would work OK in the office programmes in Windows and that my problem is with Office for Mac. In the mean time I did some work following your suggestion with Pages this morning and I must admit it was very satisfactory. Thanks for that!

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Answer 9

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,216 points

May 22, 2016 5:52 AM in response to markstainforth

TThere is no Press and Hold feature in Windows as far as I know. Pages is good, except for the format, but you can export to .doc or .pdf easily.

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Answer 10

May 19, 2017 1:00 PM in response to markstainforth

Mine does it in all software that allows the shift and hold correction -- Safari and Text Edit are the ones I use. Very irritating!

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