# Does the french-canadian Apple bluetooth keyboard have accents ?



## louisjacquot (Jan 3, 2012)

Hello there,

I'm French and I would like to buy a french-canadian Apple wireless keyboard.
Though I would like to make sure it has keys with accents (é, à, è...) like the MacBook with french-canadian keyboard (the image of the keyboard on Apple's websites is always the same : QWERTY)

I would be glad if you could help me with that - and even better, send me a pic of your french-canadian bluetooth keyboard so that I can see how it is organised

Thank you!

Best


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## broad (Jun 2, 2009)

looks like this

French canadian mac keyboard image by dhtns on Photobucket










except now has keys on the top for launchpad and mission control


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## louisjacquot (Jan 3, 2012)

That's a macbook keyboard. Are you 100% sure the wireless keyboard is the same as this one ?


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## louisjacquot (Jan 3, 2012)

I found my answer 
Yes it is the same


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## broad (Jun 2, 2009)

you're welcome


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

BTW the accents are also available on the standard keyboard. Keycaps used to be the go-to app to find these. Not sure how to find them on the latest and greatest versions of OS X.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

eMacMan said:


> BTW the accents are also available on the standard keyboard. Keycaps used to be the go-to app to find these. Not sure how to find them on the latest and greatest versions of OS X.


You can either change layouts (if you know which keys to press) or use a series of standard Option-key sequences:

all acute accents: option-e-[vowel]
all circumflex: option-i-[vowel]
all grave: option-`-[vowel]
all diaeresis (umlaut): option-u-[vowel]
ç = option-c

To its credit, Mac OS has worked this way since at least System 7, probably earlier.
Stupidly, this has never ever worked with the Caps Lock key on. 

It's actually surprisingly fast to type in French using these sequences on an English keyboard layout, though you probably wouldn't want to do it this way if French is your dominant language.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

iMatt said:


> You can either change layouts (if you know which keys to press) or use a series of standard Option-key sequences:
> 
> all acute accents: option-e-[vowel]
> all circumflex: option-i-[vowel]
> ...


Yep KeyCaps gives a visual of the Keyboard showing the combinations. Also picks up a whole lot of other symbols you may or may not know how to find. Should be something somewhere on Lion that does the same thing.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

The modern equivalent of KeyCaps is called Keyboard & Character Viewer

To put the viewer into your menu bar: 

System Preferences > Keyboard 
Check "Show Keyboard and Character Viewer in menu bar"

(This is from 10.6, someone with Lion please chime in if they've changed the Keyboard and Character Viewer significantly.)

However, I rarely use this. If you occasionally type in a language such as French or Spanish, the location of all needed accents and diacritical marks quickly becomes second nature, because all you need to remember is the five keys I mentioned, plus n to make ñ in Spanish. 

I'm sure this input method is much less useful, or maybe useless, for languages that use diacritical marks more heavily (Swedish, Polish, Czech, etc.), but it's fine for Romance languages.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

iMatt said:


> If you occasionally type in a language such as French or Spanish, the location of all needed accents and diacritical marks quickly becomes second nature, because all you need to remember is the five keys I mentioned, plus n to make ñ in Spanish.


I type a lot in French and German - typing French accents, German Umlauts and the German ß is extremely easy and intuitive on the Mac with the English keyboard - hardly slows me down.

What would drive me nuts on the French-Canadian keyboard are some of the missing special keys that I ose quite a bit - like the square brackets for instance although I'm sure they are there somewhere with a special key combination.
I find it also annoying that the French keyboard in France and the French-Canadian keyboards are different - I don't really see any rationale for that.


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## MX-V (Feb 2, 2010)

iMatt said:


> To its credit, Mac OS has worked this way since at least System 7, probably earlier.
> Stupidly, this has never ever worked with the Caps Lock key on.


Indeed, it does work this way on my 512k with a pre-6 System.


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## NFtoBC (Jun 24, 2011)

Although a bit slower, for occasional typists Lion allows you to choose accented characters by pressing and holding the appropriate key and choosing an option. Thus piñata can be easily spelled by holding down the n key, and choosing 1. 

For those regularly typing in any language, I expect a dedicated keyboard would be the best choice.


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## NFtoBC (Jun 24, 2011)

iMatt said:


> The modern equivalent of KeyCaps is called Keyboard & Character Viewer
> 
> To put the viewer into your menu bar:
> 
> ...


Very similar. On opening the System Preferences > Keyboard, there are two options: 
Keyboard and Keyboard Shortcuts; "Show Keyboard and Character Viewer in menu bar" is in the Keyboard option.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

NFtoBC said:


> Although a bit slower, for occasional typists Lion allows you to choose accented characters by pressing and holding the appropriate key and choosing an option. Thus piñata can be easily spelled by holding down the n key, and choosing 1.
> 
> For those regularly typing in any language, I expect a dedicated keyboard would be the best choice.


Press and hold? Wouldn't you just get nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn? Or are you describing the same input method as I described in post no. 7 (Option-n-n and so on), which has been around for ages (maybe even since the original Mac)?


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## 9780 (Sep 14, 2006)

iMatt said:


> Press and hold? Wouldn't you just get nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn? Or are you describing the same input method as I described in post no. 7 (Option-n-n and so on), which has been around for ages (maybe even since the original Mac)?


Lion has changed the press-and-hold behaviour to mimic the iOS keyboard behaviour. Something which makes sense on touch screens, not so much on a physical keyboard. I've promptly disabled that with a handy defaults terminal command, now I can get nnnnnnnnnnnn when I press and hold too beejacon


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

patrix said:


> Lion has changed the press-and-hold behaviour to mimic the iOS keyboard behaviour. Something which makes sense on touch screens, not so much on a physical keyboard. I've promptly disabled that with a handy defaults terminal command, now I can get nnnnnnnnnnnn when I press and hold too beejacon


Yikes.

I don't know which keyboard input method is inherently better, but I do know that the one I've used for over 25 years is likely to be a whole lot better for me.


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## NFtoBC (Jun 24, 2011)

With the exception of the underscore key_________________ and maybe the period ............ which still behave in the expected manner, I favour the new way. I have little need for repeated key presses other than those keys, and being able to easily spell coöperate or piñata has greater value.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

It's not so much that I need or want the old press-and-hold behaviour, it's that I'm not sure that it's any easier to type "piñata" the new way. 

Thinking of typing an e-mail in French, for example, right now I can easily make any accented character I need with a fluid series of keystrokes. More strokes than with a native French keyboard, yes, but there's no need to interrupt the interface or the flow with a popup menu of options, and no need to change keyboard layouts. I doubt it will be so fluid having to press and hold, then select an option.

I will have to try for myself... but not until I buy my next Mac, whenever that may be. Hopefully there is a way to fully restore the old method in case this turns out to be as clunky as it sounds.


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## NFtoBC (Jun 24, 2011)

iMatt said:


> It's not so much that I need or want the old press-and-hold behaviour, it's that I'm not sure that it's any easier to type "piñata" the new way.
> ......
> 
> I will have to try for myself... but not until I buy my next Mac, whenever that may be. Hopefully there is a way to fully restore the old method in case this turns out to be as clunky as it sounds.


Give it a try sooner -- at your choice of retail store; you might be surprised at how easy it really is.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Stumbled on this post by accident. I reside in Montreal and about 70-80% of the communication I do by whichever medium is in french. I can't stand the french from France A-Z-E-R-T-Y keyboard after using querty my whole life. I think apple's french canadian keyboard is the best thing since sliced bread! You gain a quick access to é and à and if I need to type in english I just avoid the accents. Many words in french require multiple "é"s so even a two button keystroke is unacceptable for someone that is working in french frequently and typing long documents.

The only thing you lose from the english keyboard (correct me if I'm wrong) is the ability to do an apostrophe and a question mark with one keystroke. Whenever I need to use the square brackets (on the rare occasion I type in html), they are located under 9 and 0 so I just hold option, type BOTH open and close brackets, then go back one character and type the tag. ALL my computers/phones/ipods are in english but a french keyboard is an essential necessity for me.

The one thing I don't get about Apple's french keyboard is the ù key. I've researched the letter ù and there is only a single word in the french language that requires a "ù" and that is "où" as in where. If only one word is possible with this letter, you would think they would print the word "où" on the key since that's all it can be used for. I would have thought they would have included â or ê which is much more common and kept the ù to a 2 keystroke deal. I actually make good use of that key because I bind cmd+ù to "cycle application windows" so it acts as a great compliment to cmd+tab for cycling open applications, especially since it is located immediately besides the left shift key, allowing for one handed operation of both keys.

The french keyboard on my iPhone is ok, but it takes way to long to type an accent by holding the key. Often, I'll try and type the word without the accents and hope my autocorrect will pick it up and switch the word. Unfortunately, many words change their meaning or tense with or without accents, so it "forces" you to type them in, since the word without an accent has a different meaning, so it will not be changed via autocorrect. Perhaps Apple will provide us Pea Soups with french iPhone keyboard with accents on it so we can write a paragraph in under a half hour!


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I'm surprised that the Apple French Canadian keyboard is so different from the "standard" French Canadian keyboard.
The only keys I expected to be different are the ones on either side of the space bar.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

krs said:


> I'm surprised that the Apple French Canadian keyboard is so different from the "standard" French Canadian keyboard.
> The only keys I expected to be different are the ones on either side of the space bar.


Yup, that's why it's so great. The above keyboard suxors. The "alt gr" key is the biggest pain in the butt. I believe you have to use alt gr to get the question mark or else you get the symbol besides the numbers (instead of above). Yuck.

Apple french canadian keyboard gives you ç (used in ça/that so it's used often) é (used for nearly all past tense verbs) and à (at). As you can imagine, just the words that and at are so common, that having to hit 2 or 3 keys to type these words makes typing considerably more difficult. You do have to get used to pressing shift comma for apostrophe's though, that's the biggest drawback. The pros greatly outweigh the cons in my opinion.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

Well, it's great if that is the only keyboard you use.

Last time I was in Europe I sort of went nuts because the @ symbol which is needed for each email address wasn't a visible key anywhere on the German keyboard.
Makes one wonder who comes up with these keyboard layouts - I guess for the German one people who have never sent an email.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

krs said:


> Well, it's great if that is the only keyboard you use.
> 
> Last time I was in Europe I sort of went nuts because the @ symbol which is needed for each email address wasn't a visible key anywhere on the German keyboard.
> Makes one wonder who comes up with these keyboard layouts - I guess for the German one people who have never sent an email.


I believe that the AZERTY keyboard by default gives you characters (above the letters) and you have to press a key (shift or the dreaded alt gr) to get the numbers! Even the Canadian CSA keyboard isn't very good. Apple french canadian all the way! Good for english or french speakers alike since the letters layout is the same (qwerty) and there are only minor changes to symbols.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

Depends what type of document one creates most of the time.
I use the square brackets a fair bit and also the tilde, I don't see those symbols on any of the keys of the Apple French keyboard which I assume means some special key combination.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

krs said:


> Depends what type of document one creates most of the time.
> I use the square brackets a fair bit and also the tilde, I don't see those symbols on any of the keys of the Apple French keyboard which I assume means some special key combination.


tilde is option + ç and square brackets are conveniently located under 9 and 0 so 9 or 0 + shift = parentheses and 9 or 0 + option = square brackets.

Are you saying that on the apple english keyboard, tilde and square brackets have their own keys?


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Just saw a close up of the english keyboard. So square brackets DO have their own key whereas tilde requires shift. I guess that someone that does tons of html and doesn't know how to speak french is gonna really benefit from the english only keyboard. To each his own!


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

As I said - depends in which language one uses the keyboard in most.
For me it's probably 50% English, 30% German and 20% French.
But I'm not a fast ten-finger typist anyway, so using an English keyboard for the French accents and German Umlauts doesn't slow me down much, actually hardly at all.
The method to type these special characters on the Apple English keyboard is done very well and logical compared to the one for Windows where typing these characters is a pain.


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