How to Use Mac OS X Mail to Locate and Insert Special Characters

If you want to type “Moscow” in Cyrillic, “nirvana” in Devanagari, and converse in true ancient Greek style about your ancient Greek homework, the letters on your keyboard may not suffice.

Fortunately, Mac OS X makes it simple — even enjoyable — to input nearly any (Unicode) character in email messages.

Using Mac OS X, Include Any International or Special Character in an Email

To include any character in your email, use the following syntax:

• From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences…
• Select International from the menu.
• Select the Input Menu option.
• Verify that the checkbox for Character Palette is selected.
• Return to the email you are currently composing.
• Select Show Character Palette from the input menu.
• Locate the required character (browse by category or, for Easter languages, by radical, or use the search bar, which finds characters by Latin transcription or description).
• To insert a character, double-click it.

Type multiple foreign characters easily

If the character palette appears clumsy when inserting longer text sequences, you can enable a keyboard layout that places the required characters within easy reach.

• From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences…
• Select International from the menu.
• Select the Input Menu option.
• Verify that all desired input methods and keyboard layouts are checked.
• While composing your message, click the input menu to choose the keyboard layout or input method you wish to use.
• After typing is complete, use the input menu to revert to your default keyboard layout.

If you’re unsure of the location of a particular character on the keyboard, check Keyboard Viewer in the International | Input Menu system preferences and select Show Keyboard Viewer from the input menu.

Utilize Accents and Umlauts Immediately

Finally, if only accents, cedillas, or umlauts are required, no changes are necessary. The standard US keyboard includes dead keys that make it simple to add frequently used accent marks. Several common combinations (with the first line representing the accent key, the second line representing the character typed after the accent key, and the third line representing what appears on screen):

• Option-E
  • e u i o
  • é ú í ó
• Option-`
  • e u i o a
  • è ù ì ò à
• Option-I
  • e u i o
  • ê û î ô
• Option-N
  • n o a
  • ñ õ ã
• Option-U
  • e y u i o a
  • ë ÿ ü ï ö ä