To type an accented character

Question

To type an accented character

"To type an accented or alternate version of a character, hold a key down until its alternate characters are displayed."

The input above has been working perfectly for me since I bought this notebook. Now, suddenly, it has stopped working. I did a PRAM clean two days ago, but I'm pretty sure I've used accented characters since then. But anyway, anyone have any suggestions for getting back to this? I live in France, and most of my correspondence is in French (on an English keyboard) so the two-stage option of doing this with the ALT key is a time-consuming headache and not one I wish to have recourse to use long-term.

Any suggestions would be most welcome. KEY REPEAT is on (keyboard preferences), by the way...... 🙂

MacBook, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Oct 14, 2016 1:42 AM

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Answer 1

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,450 points

Oct 14, 2016 6:24 AM in response to clonquehopper

If you do not have them already, try adding a french or spanish keyboard to the list at system prefs/keyboard/input sources and restarting.

Also you can try setting up a new user account and see if it works when you are logged into that.

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Answer 2

Oct 16, 2016 11:03 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the reply. The addition or deletion of languages, locations and keyboards seems to make no difference. But going to a guest account shows me that they have the ability to see the drop-down menu - it's just on my account.

Any idea how to fix the problem now? 😟

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Answer 3

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,450 points

Oct 17, 2016 6:07 AM in response to clonquehopper

Unfortunately it is often very hard to find what has messed up your main account. It could be login items, antivirus apps (it is all useless), or bad .plists. Sometimes the only fix is to move your account.

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