How to type diactrics (special characters)

Hello akadmon,

I don't think you need a localized version of OS X, you just need to turn on the Polish language as an option in the Input Type of International System Preferences. You can then switch between English and Polish (or any other language) as an input method on a per-application basis. Keyboard Viewer will help you work out what the keystrokes are (obviously some of the labels on your keys will not be useful when you switch to another language).

I don't really understand it but if you intend sharing your documents with someone else who is not using a Mac, then you need to be sure that you are using Unicode characters. There are some posts on this in the Pages Discussions.

I hope that helps

In the "Input Menu" of "International" Systems Preference, turn on "Character Palette" and "Keyboard Viewer", and enable "Show input menu in menu bar" (it's at the bottom of the window). This will put a flag icon in the menu bar to select the Keyboard Viewer and/or the Character Palette.

For the simpler diacriticals ( ` ´ ¨ ˆ ˜ ) hold down Option, press the diacritical key, as shown in the Keyboard Viewer), release Option, then type the character.
` e u i n will give ` ´ ¨ ˆ ˜

For other diacriticals you will need the Character Palette. "Latin" under "European Scripts" should have what you need. You can use the "Add to Favorites" function (press the little gear at the lower-left) for the ones you use most, then select "Favorites".

Here is a chart of the diacritics you can make with the US and US extended keyboards:

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