Thursday, February 25, 2010

QWERTZ

I'm getting much better about typing in Czech. But working a dual-language keyboard can be a bit confusing at times. In order to switch languages you just have to press "Alt" and "Shift" at the same time. My IBM laptop flips between English and Czech while the laptop I bought here flips between English, Czech and Slovak. By the way, I'm one of the few folks here that says "laptop". Everyone else says "notebook". In English we use the "QWERTY" layout. But Czechs use "QWERTZ". The Z and the Y are switched on a Czech keyboard. That so messes with me! The accented letters share the number keys on the top row. To type "ř" you press the #5 key. But that only gives you lower case. To type the upper case "Ř" you have to press "CapsLk" then the #5 key. If you want to type "5" then you have to press "Shift" + the #5 key. There is also a second "Alt" key called "AltGr". If you press this and the "e" key then you get the "". On the English setting, all of the punctuation & symbol keys are in exactly the same place. But the same keys are scattered around the keyboard when using the Czech setting. I find it easier to just type using the English setting and switch, to the Czech setting, when I need the accented letters. EDIT: You need to use the second "Alt" key called "AltGr" + the "v" key to get the "at sign" @. Press the "AltGr" + the "c" key to get an ampersand &.

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