Accents and umlauts on the G1

March 4, 2009

Having a real physical keyboard is definitely an advantage of the G1, but what happens when you want to send an e-mail in a language that uses accents or other characters which are not present on an american qwerty keyboard? I accidentally found the solution: use a combination of the alt and shift key.

Diacritics

Press alt + shift + e, w, i, u or n respectively for an acute accent, grave accent, circumflex accent, unlaut oor tilde, followed by the letter on which you want the accent.

é = alt + shift + e + e
ö = alt + shift + u + o
ñ = alt + shift + n + n

Other special characters

ß = alt + shift + s
ç = alt + shift + c

It's not as practical as a keyboard layout switcher, but it's great when you need to write that message in French, German or Spanish without having to compromise your spelling.

Tags: languages, google phone, g1

Comments

May 16, 2009 — Rolf (not verified)

alternative way

Thanks for discovering and sharing this! While I was looking around, I also found a way that seems to be more intuitive to me, and : "To type the accented é in "idée" or the enya in "piñon", you simply type the letter and hold it down for half a sec, then select the option you want: è or é or ê or ë." (at http://ulyssesatlarge.blogspot.com/2008/11/quick-note-about-typing-on-g1... ).

May 21, 2009 — Florian

re: alternative way

I didn't know about that alternative technique, and while I'm not a big fan of having to hold keys for half a second, I do agree that it is more intuitive. Thank you for reporting this here.

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