Specific language variants
English
Canada
English-speaking Canadians have traditionally used the same keyboard layout as in the United States, unless they are in a position where they have to write French on a regular basis. French-speaking Canadians respectively have favoured the Canadian French (CFR) and the Canadian French ACNOR (CFA) keyboard layouts (see below).
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom and Ireland [nb 1] use a keyboard layout based on the 48-key version defined in the (now withdrawn) British Standard BS 4822. [1] It is very similar to that of the United States, but has an AltGr key and a larger Enter key, includes £ and € signs and some rarely used EBCDIC symbols (¬, ¦), and uses different positions for the characters @, ", #, ~, \, and |.
The BS 4822:1994 standard did not make any use of the AltGr key and lacked support for any non-ASCII characters other than ¬ and £. It also assigned a key for the non-ASCII character broken bar (¦), but lacks one for the far more commonly used ASCII character vertical bar (|). It also lacked support for various diacritics used in the Welsh alphabet, and the Scottish Gaelic alphabet; and also is missing the letter yogh, ȝ, used very rarely in the Scots language. Therefore, various manufacturers have modified or extended the BS 4822 standard:
- The B00 key (left of Z), shifted, results in vertical bar (|) on some systems (e.g. Windows UK/Ireland keyboard layout and Linux/X11 UK/Ireland keyboard layout), rather than the broken bar (¦) assigned by BS 4822 and provided in some systems (e.g. IBM OS/2 UK166 keyboard layout)
- The E00 key (left of 1) with AltGr provides either vertical bar (|) (OS/2's UK166 keyboard layout, Linux/X11 UK keyboard layout) or broken bar (¦) (Windows UK/Ireland keyboard layout)
Support for the diacritics needed for Scots Gaelic and Welsh was added to Windows and ChromeOS using a "UK-extended" setting (see below); Linux and X-Windows systems have an explicit or redesignated compose key for this purpose.
UK Apple keyboard
The British version of the Apple Keyboard does not use the standard UK layout. Instead, some older versions have the US layout (see below) with a few differences: the £ sign is reached by ⇧ Shift+3 and the § sign by ⌥ Option+3, the opposite to the US layout. The € is also present and is typed with ⌥ Option+2. Umlauts are reached by typing ⌥ Option+U and then the vowel, and ß is reached by typing ⌥ Option+S.
Newer Apple "British" keyboards use a layout that is relatively unlike either the US or traditional UK keyboard. It uses an elongated return key, a shortened left ⇧ Shift with ` and ~ in the newly created position, and in the upper left of the keyboard are § and ± instead of the traditional EBCDIC codes. The middle-row key that fits inside the return key has \ and Pipe symbol .
United States
The arrangement of the character input keys and the Shift keys contained in this layout is specified in the US national standard ANSI-INCITS 154-1988 (R1999) (formerly ANSI X3.154-1988 (R1999)), [2] where this layout is called "ASCII keyboard". The complete US keyboard layout, as it is usually found, also contains the usual function keys in accordance with the international standard ISO/IEC 9995-2, although this is not explicitly required by the US American national standard.
US keyboards are used not only in the United States, but also in many other English-speaking jurisdictions (except the UK and Ireland) such as Canada, Australia, the Caribbean nations, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Singapore, New Zealand, and South Africa. Local spelling in these regions sometimes conforms more closely to British English usage, creating the undesirable side effect of also setting the language to US English rather than the local orthography. This conflict would be fixed in Windows 8 and later versions when Microsoft separated the keyboard and language settings. US keyboards also see use in Indonesia and the Philippines, the former of which uses the same 26-letter alphabet as English.
The US keyboard layout has a second Alt key instead of the AltGr key and does not use any dead keys; this makes it inefficient for all but a handful of languages. On the other hand, the US keyboard layout (or the similar UK layout) is occasionally used by programmers in countries where the keys for []{} are located in less convenient positions on the locally customary layout. [3]
On some keyboards the enter key is bigger than traditionally and takes up also a part of the line above, more or less the area of the traditional location of the backslash key (\). In these cases the backslash is located in alternative places. [4] It can be situated one line above the default location, on the right of the equals sign key (=). [5] [6] Sometimes it is placed one line below its traditional situation, on the right of the apostrophe key (') (in these cases the enter key is narrower than usual on the line of its default location). [7] It may also be two lines below its default situation on the right of a narrower than traditionally right shift key. [8]
A variant of this layout is used in Arabic-speaking countries.
This variant has the | \ key to the left of Z, ~ ` key where the | \ key is in the usual layout, and the > < key where the ~ ` key is in the usual layout. [9]
Czech
The typewriter came to the Czech-speaking area in the late 19th century, when it was part of Austria-Hungary where German was the dominant language of administration. Therefore, Czech typewriters have the QWERTZ layout.
However, with the introduction of imported computers, especially since the 1990s, the QWERTY keyboard layout is frequently used for computer keyboards. The Czech QWERTY layout differs from QWERTZ in that the characters (e.g. @$& and others) missing from the Czech keyboard are accessible with AltGr on the same keys where they are located on an American keyboard. In Czech QWERTZ keyboards the positions of these characters accessed through AltGr differs.
Danish
Both the Danish and Norwegian keyboards include dedicated keys for the letters Å/å, Æ/æ and Ø/ø, but the placement is a little different, as the Æ and Ø keys are swapped on the Norwegian layout. (The Finnish–Swedish keyboard is also largely similar to the Norwegian layout, but the Ø and Æ are replaced with Ö and Ä . On some systems, the Danish keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ø and Æ, respectively.) Computers with Windows are commonly sold with ÖØÆ and ÄÆØ printed on the two keys, allowing same computer hardware to be sold in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, with different operating system settings.
Dutch (Netherlands)
Though it is seldom used (most Dutch keyboards use US International layout), [10] the Dutch layout uses QWERTY but has additions for the € sign, the diaresis (¨), and the braces ({ }) as well as different locations for other symbols. An older version contained a single-stroke key for the Dutch character IJ/ij, which is usually typed by the combination of I and J. In the 1990s, there was a version with the now-obsolete florin sign (Dutch: guldenteken) for IBM PCs.
In Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), "AZERTY" keyboards are used instead, due to influence from the French-speaking part of Belgium.
See also § US-International in the Netherlands below.
Estonian
The keyboard layout used in Estonia is virtually the same as the Swedish layout. The main difference is that the Å and ¨ keys (to the right of P) are replaced with Ü and Õ respectively (the latter letter being the most distinguishing feature of the Estonian alphabet). Some special symbols and dead keys are also moved around.
Faroese
The same as the Danish layout with added Đ (Eth), since the Faroe Islands are a self-governed part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
French (Canada)
The Canadian French (CFR) keyboard layout is commonly used in Canada by French-speaking Canadians. It is the most common layout for laptops and stand-alone keyboards aimed at the Francophone market. Unlike the AZERTY layout used in France and Belgium, it is a QWERTY layout and as such is also relatively commonly used by English speakers in the US and Canada (accustomed to using US standard QWERTY keyboards) for easy access to the accented letters found in some French loanwords. It can be used to type all accented French characters, as well as some from other languages, and serves all English functions as well. It is popular mainly because of its close similarity to the basic US keyboard commonly used by English-speaking Canadians and Americans, historical use of US-made typewriters by French-Canadians. The right Alt key is reconfigured as an AltGr key that gives easy access to a further range of characters (marked in blue and red on the keyboard image. Blue indicates an alternative character that will display as typed. Red indicates a dead key: the diacritic will be applied to the next vowel typed.) The traditional Canadian French keyboard from IBM must use an ISO keyboard. The French guillemets located on the extra key are needed to type proper French, they are not optional. A dvorak version (traditional Canadian french layout) is also supported by Microsoft Windows.
In this keyboard, the key names are translated to French:
- ⇪ Caps Lock is Fix Maj or Verr Maj (short for Fixer/Verrouiller Majuscule, meaning Lock Uppercase).
- ↵ Enter is ↵ Entrée. [11]
- Esc is Échap.
The "hybrid" keyboard layout, often referred incorrectly as "canadian multilingual" or "bilingual" is a mix between the US English and the Canadian French layout over an ISO keyboard. This layout has been developed by manufacturers as a cost saving strategy first for their low end laptops. They tend to be extended to the mid-range laptops in the recent years and sold wrongly as a "French" keyboard. Today, this layout seems to be criticized by both anglophones and francophones. [13] [14] The anglophones accustomed to the ANSI keyboard complain about the small ISO shift on left and francophones can find these legends hard to read and messy. In this keyboard, the key names are translated in both French and English. This keyboard can be netherless useful for programming.
In 1988, the Quebec government has developed a new keyboard layout, using proper keys for Ù,Ç,É,È,À, standardized by the CSA Group and adopted also by the federal government. [15] This layout is known as Canadian French (Legacy) today on Windows and is considered to be the ancestor to the actual Canadian Multilingual Standard. The CMS on Windows and Linux is based on the CAN/CSA Z243.200-92 standard (launched in 1992 by the CSA Group, revised in 2021). Apple use a layout based mostly on the standardized CSA keyboard from 1992 too, called Canadian French ― CSA. The CMS is one of the few layouts allowing to type the ligature œ/Œ, common in French. The integral version use pictograms based on the ISO 9995-7 standard. Unlike the traditional Canadian French keyboard developed by IBM, the CSA Keyboard is also standardized on both ISO and ANSI keyboard. The French guillemets on the CSA keyboard are located on the level 3 ⇮AltGr with the Z and X keys. The Ù on the extra key can be replaced by a combinaison of ⇮AltGr+` (dead key left from Ç) then u or ⇧Shift+u. The ISO version still netherless needed by the Quebec government, following their higher standard named SGQRI-001. [16] The Quebec CSA keyboard is also named Canadian French ACNOR (CFA) or Canadian International Bilingual.
Greek
- The stress accents, indicated in red, are produced by pressing that key (or shifted key) followed by an appropriate vowel.
- Use of the "AltGr" key may produce the characters shown in blue.
German
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg use QWERTZ layouts, where the letter Z is to the right of T.
Icelandic
The Icelandic keyboard layout is different from the standard QWERTY keyboard because the Icelandic alphabet has some special letters, most of which it shares with the other Nordic countries: Þ/þ, Ð/ð, Æ/æ, and Ö/ö. (Æ/æ also occurs in Norwegian, Danish and Faroese, Ð/ð in Faroese, and Ö/ö in Swedish, Finnish and Estonian. In Norwegian Ö/ö could be substituted for Ø/Ø which is the same sound/letter and is widely understood).
The letters Á/á, Ý/ý, Ú/ú, Í/í, Ó/ó and É/é are produced by first pressing the ´ dead key and then the corresponding letter. The Nordic letters Å/å and Ä/ä can be produced by first pressing °, located below the Esc key, and ⇧ Shift+° (for ¨) which also works for the non-Nordic ÿ, Ü/ü, Ï/ï, and Ë/ë. These letters are not used natively in Icelandic, but may have been implemented for ease of communication in other Nordic languages.[ citation needed ] Additional diacritics may be found behind the AltGr key: AltGr++ for ˋ (grave accent) and AltGr+´ for ˆ (circumflex).
Irish
Windows includes an Irish layout which supports acute accents with AltGr for the Irish language and grave accents with the ` dead key for Scottish Gaelic. The other Insular Celtic languages have their own layout. The UK or UK-Extended layout is also frequently used.
Italian
- Braces (right above square brackets and shown in purple) are given with both AltGr and Shift pressed.
- The tilde (~) and backquote (`) characters are not present on the Italian keyboard layout (with Linux, they are available by pressing AltGr+ì, and AltGr+'; Windows might not recognise these keybindings).
- When using Microsoft Windows, the standard Italian keyboard layout does not allow one to write 100% correct Italian language, since it lacks capital accented vowels, and in particular the È key. The common workaround is writing E' (E followed by an apostrophe) instead, or relying on the auto-correction feature of several word processors when available. It is possible to obtain the È symbol in MS Windows by typing Alt + 0200. Mac users, however, can write the correct accented character by pressing ⇧ Shift + ⌥ Option + E or, in the usual Mac way, by pressing the correct key for the accent (in this case Alt + 9) and subsequently pressing the wanted letter (in this case ⇧ Shift + E). Linux users can also write it by pressing the è key with ⇪ Caps Lock enabled.
There is an alternate layout, which differs only in disposition of characters accessible through AltGr, and includes the tilde and the curly brackets. It is commonly used in IBM keyboards.
Italian typewriters often[ citation needed ] have the QZERTY layout instead.
The Italian-speaking part of Switzerland uses the QWERTZ keyboard.
Latvian
Although rarely used, a keyboard layout specifically designed for the Latvian language called ŪGJRMV exists. The Latvian QWERTY keyboard layout is most commonly used; its layout is the same as the United States one, but with a dead key, which allows entering special characters (āčēģīķļņōŗšūž). The most common dead key is the apostrophe ('), which is followed by Alt+Gr (Windows default for Latvian layout). Some prefer using the tick (`).
Lithuanian
Where in standard QWERTY the number row is located, you find in Lithuanian QWERTY: Ą, Č, Ę, Ė, Į, Š, Ų, Ū, Ž, instead of their counterparts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, =. If you still want to use the numbers of the mentioned 'number row', you can create them in combination with the AltGr-key. Aside from these changes the keyboard is standard QWERTY. Besides QWERTY, the ĄŽERTY layout without the adjustment of the number row is used.
Maltese
The Maltese language uses Unicode (UTF-8) to display the Maltese diacritics: ċ Ċ; ġ Ġ; ħ Ħ; ż Ż (together with à À; è È; ì Ì; ò Ò; ù Ù). There are two standard keyboard layouts for Maltese, according to "MSA 100:2002 Maltese Keyboard Standard"; one of 47 keys and one of 48 keys. The 48-key layout is the most popular.
Norwegian
The Norwegian languages use the same letters as Danish, but the Norwegian keyboard differs from the Danish layout regarding the placement of the Ø , Æ and \ (backslash) keys. On the Danish keyboard, the Ø and Æ are swapped. The Swedish keyboard is also similar to the Norwegian layout, but Ø and Æ are replaced with Ö and Ä . On some systems, the Norwegian keyboard may allow typing Ö/ö and Ä/ä by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ø and Æ, respectively.
There is also an alternative keyboard layout called Norwegian with Sámi, which allows for easier input of the characters required to write various Sámi languages. All the Sámi characters are accessed through the AltGr key.
On Macintosh computers, the Norwegian and Norwegian extended keyboard layouts have a slightly different placement for some of the symbols obtained with the help of the ⇧ Shift or ⌥ Option keys. Notably, the $ sign is accessed with ⇧ Shift+4 and ¢ with ⇧ Shift+⌥ Option+4. Furthermore, the frequently used @ is placed between Æ and Return.
Polish
Most typewriters use a QWERTZ keyboard with Polish letters (with diacritical marks) accessed directly (officially approved as "Typist's keyboard", Polish : klawiatura maszynistki, Polish Standard PN-87), which is mainly ignored in Poland as impractical (custom-made keyboards, e.g., those in the public sector as well as some Apple computers, present an exception to this paradigm); the "Polish programmer's" (Polish : polski programisty) layout has become the de facto standard, used on virtually all computers sold on the Polish market.
Most computer keyboards in Poland are laid out according to the standard US visual and functional layout. Polish diacritics are accessed by using the AltGr key with a corresponding similar letter from the base Latin alphabet. Normal capitalization rules apply with respect to Shift and Caps Lock keys. For example, to enter "Ź", one can type Shift+AltGr+X with Caps Lock off, or turn on Caps Lock and type AltGr+X.
Both ANSI [18] and ISO [19] mechanical layouts are common sights, and even some non-standard [20] mechanical layouts are in use. ANSI is often preferred, as the additional key provides no additional function, at least in Microsoft Windows where it duplicates the backslash key, while taking space from the Shift key. Many keyboards do not label AltGr as such, leaving the Alt marking as in the US layout – the right Alt key nevertheless functions as AltGr in this layout, causing possible confusion when keyboard shortcuts with the Alt key are required (these usually work only with the left Alt) and causing the key to be commonly referred to as right Alt (Polish : prawy Alt). [21] However, keyboards with AltGr marking are available and it is also officially used by Microsoft when depicting the layout. [22]
| Caps Lock state | In combination with | Keystroke | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | C | E | L | N | O | S | Z | X | U | ||
| Off | right Alt | ą | ć | ę | ł | ń | ó | ś | ż | ź | € |
| Shift & right Alt | Ą | Ć | Ę | Ł | Ń | Ó | Ś | Ż | Ź | ||
| On | right Alt | Ą | Ć | Ę | Ł | Ń | Ó | Ś | Ż | Ź | € |
| Shift & right Alt | ą | ć | ę | ł | ń | ó | ś | ż | ź | ||
| Note: On Polish programmer keyboard, right Alt plays the role of AltGr | |||||||||||
Also, on MS Windows, the tilde character "~" (Shift+`) acts as a dead key to type Polish letters (with diacritical marks) thus, to obtain an "Ł", one may press Shift+` followed by L. The tilde character is obtained with (Shift+`) then space.
In Linux-based systems, the euro symbol is typically mapped to Alt+5 instead of Alt+U, the tilde acts as a normal key, and several accented letters from other European languages are accessible through combinations with left Alt. Polish letters are also accessible by using the compose key.
Software keyboards on touchscreen devices usually make the Polish diacritics available as one of the alternatives which show up after long-pressing the corresponding Latin letter. [23] [24] However, modern predictive text and autocorrection algorithms largely mitigate the need to type them directly on such devices.
There is also another expanded Polish keyboard layout since 2021, based on the layout from Polish 80s computers Mazovia and wide expanded into all Latin diacritical signs, Greek signs, mathematical signs, IPA signs, typographical signs, symbols and sign "zł" meaning Polish currency, available in two versions, QWERTZ and QWERTY. [25] [26] [27]
Portuguese
Brazil
The Brazilian computer keyboard layout is specified in the ABNT NBR 10346 variant 2 (alphanumeric portion) and 10347 (numeric portion) standards. [28]
Essentially, the Brazilian keyboard contains dead keys for five variants of diacritics in use in the language; the letter Ç, the only application of the cedilha in Portuguese, has its own key. In some keyboard layouts the AltGr+C combination produces the ₢ character (Unicode 0x20A2), symbol for the old currency cruzeiro, a symbol that is not used in practice (the common abbreviation in the eighties and nineties used to be Cr$). The cent sign ¢, is accessible via AltGr+5, but is not commonly used for the centavo, subunit of previous currencies as well as the current real, which itself is represented by R$. The Euro sign € is not standardized in this layout. The masculine and feminine ordinals ª and º are accessible via AltGr combinations. The section sign § (Unicode U+00A7), in Portuguese called parágrafo, is nowadays practically only used to denote sections of laws.
Variant 2 of the Brazilian keyboard, the only which gained general acceptance (MS Windows treats both variants as the same layout), [29] has a unique mechanical layout, combining some features of the ISO 9995-3 and the JIS keyboards in order to fit 12 keys between the left and right Shift (compared to the American standard of 10 and the international of 11). Its modern, IBM PS/2-based variations, are thus known as 107-keys keyboards, and the original PS/2 variation was 104-key. Variant 1, never widely adopted, was based on the ISO 9995-2 keyboards. To make this layout usable with keyboards with only 11 keys in the last row, the rightmost key (/?°) has its functions replicated across the AltGr+Q, AltGr+W, and AltGr+E combinations.
Portugal
Essentially, the Portuguese keyboard contains dead keys for five variants of diacritics; the letter Ç, the only application of the cedilha in Portuguese, has its own key, but there is also a dedicated key for the ordinal indicators and a dedicated key for quotation marks. [30] The AltGr+E combination for producing the euro sign € (Unicode 0x20AC) has become standard. [31] On some QWERTY keyboards the key labels are translated, but the majority are labelled in English.
During the 20th century, a different keyboard layout, HCESAR, was in widespread use in Portugal.
Romanian
The current Romanian National Standard SR 13392:2004 establishes two layouts for Romanian keyboards: a "primary" [32] one and a "secondary" [33] one.
The "primary" layout is intended for traditional users who have learned how to type with older, Microsoft-style implementations of the Romanian keyboard. The "secondary" layout is mainly used by programmers as it does not contradict the physical arrangement of keys on a US-style keyboard. The "secondary" arrangement is used as the default Romanian layout by Linux distributions, as defined in the "X Keyboard Configuration Database". [34]
There are four Romanian-specific characters that are incorrectly implemented in versions of Microsoft Windows until Vista came out:
- Ș (U+0218, S with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ş (U+015E, S with cedilla)
- ș (U+0219, s with comma), incorrectly implemented as ş (U+015F, s with cedilla)
- Ț (U+021A, T with comma), incorrectly implemented as Ţ (U+0162, T with cedilla)
- ț (U+021B, t with comma), incorrectly implemented as ţ (U+0163, t with cedilla)
The cedilla-versions of the characters do not exist in the Romanian language (they came to be used due to a historic bug). [35] The UCS now says that encoding this was a mistake because it messed up Romanian data and the letters with cedilla and the letters with comma are the same letter with a different style. [36]
Since Romanian hardware keyboards are not widely available, Cristian Secară has created a driver that allows Romanian characters to be generated with a US-style keyboard in all versions of Windows prior to Vista through the use of the AltGr key modifier. [37]
Windows Vista and newer versions include the correct diacritical signs in the default Romanian Keyboard layout.
This layout has the Z and Y keys mapped like in English layouts and also includes characters like the 'at' (@) and dollar ($) signs, among others. The older cedilla-version layout is still included albeit as the 'Legacy' layout.
Slovak
In Slovakia, similarly to the Czech Republic, both QWERTZ and QWERTY keyboard layouts are used. QWERTZ is the default keyboard layout for Slovak in Microsoft Windows.
Spanish
Spain
The Spanish keyboard layout is used to write in Spanish and in other languages of Spain such as Catalan, Basque, Galician, Aragonese, Asturian and Occitan. It includes Ñ for Spanish, Asturian and Galician, the acute accent, the diaeresis, the inverted question and exclamation marks (¿, ¡), the superscripted o and a (º, ª) for writing abbreviated ordinal numbers in masculine and feminine in Spanish and Galician, and finally, some characters required only for typing Catalan and Occitan, namely Ç, the grave accent and the interpunct (punt volat / punt interior, used in l·l; located at Shift-3). It can also be used to write other international characters, such as those using a circumflex accent (used in French and Portuguese among others), which are available as dead keys. However, it lacks two characters used in Asturian: Ḥ and Ḷ (historically, general support for these two has been poor – they are not present in the ISO 8859-1 character encoding standard, or any other ISO/IEC 8859 standard). Several alternative distributions, based on this one or created from scratch, have been created to address this issue (see the Other original layouts and layout design software section for more information).
On most keyboards, € is marked as Alt Gr + E and not Alt Gr + 5 as shown in the image. However, in some keyboards, € is found marked twice.
Spanish keyboards are usually labelled in Spanish instead of English, its abbreviations being:
| Spanish label | English equivalent |
|---|---|
| Insertar (Ins) | Insert (Ins) |
| Suprimir (Supr) | Delete (Del) |
| Retroceder página (Re Pág) | Page up (PgUp) |
| Avanzar página (Av Pág) | Page down (PgDn) |
| Inicio | Home |
| Fin | End |
| Imprimir pantalla / Petición de sistema (Impr Pant/PetSis) | Print Screen / System request (PrtScn/SysRq) |
| Bloqueo de mayúsculas (Bloq Mayús) | Caps Lock |
| Bloqueo numérico (Bloq Num) | Num Lock |
| Bloqueo de desplazamiento (Bloq Despl) | Scroll Lock |
| Pausa / Interrumpir (Pausa/Inter) | Pause/Break |
| Intro | Enter |
On some keyboards, the c-cedilla key (Ç) is located one or two lines above, rather than on the right of, the acute accent key (´). In some cases it is placed on the right of the plus sign key (+), [38] [39] while in other keyboards it is situated on the right of the inverted exclamation mark key (¡). [40] [ better source needed ] [41]
Latin America, officially known as Spanish Latinamerican sort
The Latin American Spanish keyboard layout is used throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Before its design, Latin American vendors had been selling the Spanish (Spain) layout as default; this is still being the case, with both keyboard layouts being sold simultaneously all over the region.
Its most obvious difference from the Spanish (Spain) layout is the lack of a Ç key. While it has the tilde (~), it is not a dead key on Windows (available on Linux as an option to be enabled). It also has the circunflex (^) and the grave accent (`) available as tertiary position characters on AltGr+{ and AltGr+} while in the Spanish Spain layout the grave has its own key and the diaeresis can be typed using ⇧ Shift as a secondary position character. This is not a problem when writing in Spanish but it generates issues when trying to type in other languages such as French or Portuguese, due to the inhability to produce the Ç or the unfavourable position of the other dead keys. This is specially true either for countries with large commercial ties to Brazil (Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) or for language learners and translators. Apart from that, the € sign is nonexistent on this layout. It has to be typed from the numeric pad using an altcode or copied and pasted from other websites.
The Latin American layout, although similar to the Spanish Spain layout, has some peculiarities: the ´ is placed next to the p, while in the Spanish Spain layout it is located next to the ñ. Meanwhile, the @ sign (done by pressing AltGr+2 in the Spain layout) is instead produced by pressing AltGr+q. These two features generate a lot of confusion on many users as many machines use a different keyboard layout that the one set as default on the system: one may encounter a computer with the Spanish Spain layout set up as default but also having the Latin American keyboard physically, or the other way around. Thus, it is very common for people to hit the wrong dead key or be unable to produce a character as shown on the layout because these two keyboards are available side by side to the public, so users generally struggle from the transition of i.e. using the Latin American distribution at home while employing the Spanish Spain layout at work or school or viceversa.
In this layout, key names are translated: "Caps Lock" is rendered as "Bloq Mayús", "Enter" appears as either "Intro" or "Entrar" depending on the vendor, "Page up" and "page down" appear as "re pág" and "av pag", respectively; "shift" is translated as "mayús", and "backspace" is "retroceso".
Swedish
The central characteristics of the Swedish keyboard are the three additional letters Å/å, Ä/ä, and Ö/ö. The same visual layout is also in use in Finland and Estonia, as the letters Ä/ä and Ö/ö are shared with the Swedish language, and even Å/å is needed by Swedish-speaking Finns. However, the Finnish multilingual keyboard adds new letters and punctuation to the functional layout.
The Norwegian keyboard largely resembles the Swedish layout, but the Ö and Ä are replaced with Ø and Æ . The Danish keyboard is also similar, but it has the Ø and Æ swapped. On some systems, the Swedish or Finnish keyboard may allow typing Ø/ø and Æ/æ by holding the AltGr or ⌥ Option key while striking Ö and Ä, respectively.
The Swedish with Sámi keyboard allows typing not only Ø/ø and Æ/æ, but even the letters required to write various Sámi languages. This keyboard has the same function for all the keys engraved on the regular Swedish keyboard, and the additional letters are available through the AltGr key.
On Macintosh computers, the Swedish and Swedish Pro keyboards differ somewhat from the image shown above, especially as regards the characters available using the ⇧ Shift or ⌥ Option keys. ⇧ Shift+§ (on the upper row) produces the ° sign, and ⇧ Shift+4 produces the € sign. The digit keys produce ©@£$∞§ with ⌥ Option and ¡"¥¢‰¶\{}≠ with ⌥ Option+⇧ Shift.
On Linux systems, the Swedish keyboard may also give access to additional characters as follows:
- first row: AltGr¶¡@£$€¥{[]}\± and AltGr+⇧ Shift¾¹²³¼¢⅝÷«»°¿¬
- second row: AltGr@ł€®þ←↓→œþ"~ and AltGr+⇧ ShiftΩŁ¢®Þ¥↑ıŒÞ°ˇ
- third row: AltGrªßðđŋħjĸłøæ´ and AltGr+⇧ Shiftº§ÐªŊĦJ&ŁØÆ×
- fourth row: AltGr|«»©""nµ¸·̣ and AltGr+⇧ Shift¦<>©‘’Nº˛˙˙
Several of these characters function as dead keys.
Turkish
As of 2022, the majority of Turkish keyboards are based on QWERTY (the so-called Q-keyboard layout), although there is also the older F-keyboard layout specifically designed for the language.
Vietnamese
The Vietnamese keyboard layout is an extended Latin QWERTY layout. The letters Ă, Â, Ê, and Ô are found on what would be the number keys 1–4 on the US English keyboard, with 5–9 producing the tonal marks (grave accent, hook, tilde, acute accent and dot below, in that order), 0 producing Đ, = producing the đồng sign (₫) when not shifted, and brackets ([]) producing Ư and Ơ. [42]
