Writing e-mails on foreign keyboards

Today we were invited with friends for a BBQ. One of the conversations we had was about writing e-mails on a foreign keyboard.

Anyone who has travelled to a foreign country before and used a local PC has probably had that challenge of finding the right characters on the keyboard. The biggest challenge I heard of from people is about the @ sign and the . (dot) character. These are two important characters when entering an e-mail address.

Well there is an easy solution, all you need is to remember two numbers: 46 and 64. When you can’t find the sign on the keyboard you can use the so-called ALT Code to write a character.

To write the @ sign, hold down the "Alt" key to the left of the space bar and enter 64 on the numeric keypad. Don’t release the "Alt" key until after you’ve typed 64. When you release it you should see the @ character.

To write a . (dot) apply the same procedure as described above, but enter 46 instead of 64.

Here are some related sources I found on the Useful Shortcuts web site

Instructions for using Windows Alt Codes

Alt Codes / Alt Key Codes

Complete List of Alt Codes (Free download)

On MAC systems, things seem to be different, at least that is what I got from reading various forums (I don’t have a Mac…….yet)http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/keyboards/charpalosx.html

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