Backslash and pipe characters on unknown layout

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Level 1

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Backslash and pipe characters on unknown layout

Hey guys!

So I was recently given from the company I'm working with a MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina, late 2013.

At first I thought it had the normal Italian keyboard layout (I'm Italian and I got used to type with such layout, and it is also pretty easily recognisable by the fact that on the right-hand side it has all the accents, àèìòù etc...).

Then pretty soon I found myself in the situation of having to type backslash and pipe (and that happens frequently to me), but I had no luck finding them, realizing that instead of the backslash/pipe key (over the tab key) I had the less-than/greater-than key (which is normally near the left shift key). The following is a photo of my layout:

What I tried so far, other than using all possible combinations of shift, ctrl, alt, cmd and the rest of the keys was to enable the keyboard viewer, only to confirm that no combination would result in a backslash or a pipe (though now I can do this ).

The layout System Preferences is showing me is "Italian", though it really isn't (due to that key), is there any way I can have more information on the subject? What am I missing at this point? It seems so absurd to me that Apple didn't think about it!

Please if you have any clue let me know, it's driving me crazy!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13)

Posted on Oct 13, 2017 8:38 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,240 points

Oct 13, 2017 9:36 AM in response to lo_zio

You seem to have an Italian keyboard, but on ANSI hardware instead of ISO. This means you are missing the extra key next to the z. I have never seen an Apple keyboard for Europe that was not ISO. ANSI is normally for the US or Latin America or Asia. It almost looks as if someone had taken a US machine and put Italian keys on it.

Without that extra key, there is no pipe or backslash in the Italian layout. You could make shortcuts for them via system preferences/keyboard/text/replace with or you could make a custom keyboard layout with

http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele

Or switch to the US layout, on which it's also possible to make the accented characters needed for Italian either via Press and Hold on the keys or standard option key shortcuts.

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Answer 2

lo_zio Author

Level 1

17 points

Oct 13, 2017 8:55 AM in response to kaz-k

Thanks for the answer but as I said I tried all of the combinations (and googled around and already saw that post) and it doesn't work for me. shift+alt+L gives me ˇ and shift+alt+: doesn't exist in italian as : is shift+. and shift+alt+. is ·

So no luck with those combinations

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Answer 3

lo_zio Author

Level 1

17 points

Oct 13, 2017 9:38 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Oh God that sure seems to be the case (that is why it was so odd to me too!). Unfortunately creating a new shortcut was also something that I tried (and forgot to mention) and it doesn't work with many apps where I need it (i.e. Terminal, but also Sublime Text and so on). I will give Ukelele a try and come back at you asap!

Thanks! 🙂

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Answer 4

lo_zio Author

Level 1

17 points

Oct 13, 2017 1:21 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Took a while to figure out how to import the layout but it actually was pretty simple! Just leaving it here if somebody else needs it: just copy the saved file from Ukelele to /Library/Keyboard Layout and then go look for the keyboard layout in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources and then add one and look for it!

Thanks Tom for helping out!

Cheers!

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Answer 5

kaz-k

Level 9

50,184 points

Oct 13, 2017 8:49 AM in response to lo_zio

Mac Keyboard shortcuts: How write a pipe (or backslash) on MacBook | InfoPython

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

118,240 points

Oct 13, 2017 1:10 PM in response to lo_zio

If you have any trouble with Ukelele, I have done lots of them and it would only take a couple minutes to put those characters at some place you find convenient.

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