How do I get special characters (e.g. £) in Thunderbird etc?

[Howard]

I am running LXDE on a machine with a US keyboard (that's what you get here in Canada, there doesn't seem to be an English Canadian one!).  But, having strong UK connections, I often want to put special characters, especially £, into my e-mails.  At present I do this by opening OOowriter inserting the £ and then copy-and-pasting into tb or ff (as I've just done).  Is there an easier way?

[AndrzejL]

Shift and 1, 2 and so one will get You special characters. In here £ is invoked by shift + 3, € = Right alt + 4... Give it a go see what can You get using shift with numbers and right alt (aka altgr alias alt grammatical) with just about any key on the keyboard.

Regards.

Andy

[Howard]

Sorry Andy,

!@#$%^&*()  Is what I get using Shift + number (1 through to 0) on a US keyboard (these are all printed above the numbers on the keys!), and ALT + number does nothing.  I think you must have a UK keyboard??  I think it's more to do with keying in codes.

[parnote]

Howard,

If you want the right Alt key recognized on a US keyboard, you will have to use the US International keyboard, IIRC.

parnote

[pinoc]

You could also try Important notes, point 8 here

[Howard]

Thanks parnote and pinoc.  The trouble is I am using a Dell netbook which has only 81 keys, and doesn't appear in the list of options.  It doesn't work exactly as in note 8 but I have found how to get € and äöü etc OK.  One odd thing is that the single apostrophe key doesn't work, I have to press RALT+' to get it! 

Also I cannot find the English Pound sign, £, so am still stuck with cut&paste.

[pinoc]

or maybe here, or there, and then there is always this 

[DeBaas]

Ctrl-Shift-u
release u
20a4 (not the nummeric pad, one by one)
(on the screen you read u20a4 )
release Ctrl-Shift
₤
a few hexcodes
f056 is 
20ac is €

and there are other options with the right special(WIN) key
right special = l (one by one) £

Keyboard US international:

 € is under Alt-e or Alt-5
 ¿ is under right special followed by 2x ?
The others
right special followed by 2x
e == ə
u == ŭ
o == °
a == å
s == ß
k == ĸ
x == ×
c == č
. == …
/ == \
! == ¡
#== ♯
( == [
) == ]
_ == ¯
+ == #
U == Ŭ
P == ¶
A == Å

and this one — is made with right special and (3x) -

You can find these  Çç  
with right special followed by , and
c == ç
C == Ç
d == ḑ
D == Ḑ
e == ȩ
E == Ȩ
g == ģ
G == Ģ
h == ḩ
H == Ḩ
k == ķ
K == Ķ
l == ļ
L == Ļ
n == ņ
N == Ņ
r == ŗ
R == Ŗ
s == ş
S == Ş
t == ţ
T == Ţ

There is more.............
right special followed by . and
ẇėṙṫẏıȯṗȧṡḋḟġḣżẋċḃṅṁ

And right special =e €, =y ¥, +- ±, =l £, try all combinations  

And no, didn't use a dec/hex convertor yet.
http://unicode.org/
And Google is your friend

CU
Ed

[The Chief]

@DeBaas~

Are those Thunderbird specific?  Certainly don't seem to work anywhere else - kwrite, in particular.

The right special key seems to give the same results as a right click.

Edit to add:  Wait...  I am trying it on KDE, so, maybe to be expected...

[menotu]

Nice one - DeBaas - works well.

Just tried it in Web mail. Only tiny difference was mine was

u20A4 which was, of course, due to shift being held when pressing a

but as soon as Ctrl-Shift was released there was the £ symbol  

[Ɗα√ϵς§]

I have an idea but it will involve messing about with a file at root level:

As root, you need to edit the file:

/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gb

Change the following keylines near the top thus:

key <AE02>   { [ 2, at, twosuperior, oneeighth ] };
key <AE03>   { [ 3, numbersign, threesuperior, sterling ] };

key <AC11>   { [ apostrophe, quotedbl, dead_circumflex, dead_caron] };
key <TLDE>   { [ grave, asciitilde, bar, notsign ]   };

key <BKSL>   { [ backslash, bar, bar, brokenbar ] };

Now select the British English keyboard in the control centre and reboot. The above changes will put the @, #, " and ~ back where they are on the US keyboard, but the right ALT key will work as a further shift key, so for example, ALTGR+SHIFT+3 gets you your £ sign.

If you have a right-windows key, it will also behave like a compose key, so that you can also get £ by RIGHTWIN, - , L try a few others.

You should backup the original gb file in case of issues, also keep a copy of your altered one because every time xorg is updated you might have to change the file back.

[Howard]

Some of this works, e.g. the u20a4 routine, but my keyboard is really messed up, I get lots of strange characters where I don want them (see bold items).  Mainly because the ´ key is behaving oddly

As I said itś only an 81 key keyboard, and thatś not an option I can find in the PCC.   I think Iĺl have to go back to the standard US setting and use cut&paste.

Added after resetting to US standard:

It doesn't have a right windows key, just one with what I think is a filing cabinet and arrow icon.

Since the u20xx works in the normal US setting and I can get ₤ and € with that I'm reasonable happy!

[Bald Brick]

Some of this works, e.g. the u20a4 routine, but my keyboard is really messed up, I get lots of strange characters where I don want them (see bold items).  Mainly because the ´ key is behaving oddly

Not that oddly. With most keyboard setups it's not an apostrophe key but a key that adds an acute accent to the next letter you type.

As I said itś only an 81 key keyboard, and thatś not an option I can find in the PCC.   I think Iĺl have to go back to the standard US setting and use cut&paste.

Added after resetting to US standard:

It doesn't have a right windows key, just one with what I think is a filing cabinet and arrow icon.

Since the u20xx works in the normal US setting and I can get ₤ and € with that I'm reasonable happy!

[DeBaas]

@Howard,
at least one of the solutions is doing the trick.
Better solutions.......... keep them coming

[cirrus_minor]

Set your compose key from a shell or a script with
'setxkbmap -option "compose:ralt"'
(if you want your right alt key to become the compose key).