Typing International Characters With UK Keyboard

I've submitted a 'Windows Feature Suggestion' on UserVoice regarding having easy-to-use system wide keyboard shortcuts in Windows for international characters (see below). However, as I imagine the vast majority of people only use their default language, I doubt it will ever get any votes and will just end up disappearing to the bottom of the list pretty quickly.

Therefore, if there are any people who use an English keyboard to type foreign languages, feel free to add votes to the UserVoice suggestion. You don't need to sign in or enter an email address, just click the 'vote' button and select '3 votes'.

https://windows.uservoice.com/forums...de-keyboard-sh

International Characters - System Wide Keyboard Shortcuts

When typing foreign languages, some languages such as German, French, Italian, Spanish, etc. have accents on their characters (such as à, è, ì). It's possible to type these using ALT codes, or coping & pasting, however it's laborious and therefore shortcut keys would be a quicker way of typing them.

Therefore, my suggestion would be to provide a quicker way of typing these accents. Maybe something along the lines of what Microsoft Office does by using CTRL+' (the letter). Of course, Microsoft Office Keyboard Shortcuts only work in Office, they aren't system wide, therefore don't provide an actual solution.

https://support.office.com/en-us/art...1-d60407d13c35

Or maybe something similar to Macs, which are as follows:

á = Opt + e, then a
é = Opt + e, then e
í = Opt + e, then i
ó = Opt + e, then o
ú = Opt + e, then u
ñ = Opt + n, then n
ü = Opt + u, then u
¡ = Opt + 1
¿ = Opt + shift + ?

Sadly if I go to that Uservoice site, I get redirected away to a Windows 10 page (I've noticed this before with uservoice). I'm not sure why though.

I know I am a bit late to the party, but when using Windows 10, you could go for enabling the UK Extended Keyboard Layout. I can not tell if this works for earlier Windows version, but feel free to test this, and leave a response as to whether it does or not.

As you have a UK keyboard, I take if you have the standards in place, and already have English enabled as language, with a QWERTY keyboard.

1. Now go to Settings > Time & Languages > Region & Language.
2. Go the Languages section and click on English (UK) Language and select Options.
3. In Options, choose to Add a Keyboard, and add United Kingdom Extended / QWERTY as keyboard.
4. Now close these panels and Windows should now offer you this additional keyboard (English UKX) via the Windows key + Space Bar method

If you want to know what shortcuts you can now use for international character - replacing the limited list with ALTGR on the standard keyboard layout, please check section 4.1 on this Wikipedia site QWERTY - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have not yet fully tested this keyboard, but as it's "extended" I expect it will not remove any functionality but only add features!

PS about the re-route: I suspect Windows Support thought to address your issue that way ... but I know it does not ...