International characters are generated by issuing a three key sequence. The first key is the compose key, which you will specify. The second and third keys are the keys which actually generate the result.
The first step is to enable support for the international keyboard within the KDE Control Center. From within KDE, click on the K icon at the bottom of the screen and select Control Center. The KDE Control Center will come up. Select the option Regional & Accessibility.
Once the regional menu is up, select the option Keyboard Layout. You'll need to set the Keyboard Options as follows:
Once you have set the options for the layout, select the tab Options at the top of the screen. The options page is used to specify your compose key. Personally, I use the right windows key as my compose key.
Time is of the essence between pressing the compose key and the first key of the combination.
When shift is required with compose, hold it down before holding down compose.
This list is not exhaustive of key combinations that produce 8859-1 characters. I've only listed the ones that seemed most natural to me.
| compose | combo | results | description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Punctuation | |||
| < | < | « | chevron or guillemet |
| > | > | » | chevron or guillemet |
| ? | ? | ¿ | inverted question mark |
| ! | ! | ¡ | inverted exclamation point |
| - | ^ | ¯ | overbar or macron |
| 0 | ^ | ° | degree |
| - | - | | soft hyphen |
| Superscripts | |||
| ^ | 1 | ¹ | |
| ^ | 2 | ² | |
| ^ | 3 | ³ | |
| Math | |||
| x | x | × | multiplication |
| - | : | ÷ | division |
| . | . | · | middle dot |
| - | + | ± | plus or minus |
| - | , | ¬ | negation |
| Editing | |||
| 0 | s | § | section |
| P | ! | ¶ | paragraph or pilcrow |
| Foreign | |||
| a | _ | ª | feminine ordinal |
| o | _ | º | masculine ordinal |
| ` | aAeEiIoOuU | àÀèÈìÌòÒùÙ | grave accents |
| ' | aeiouyAEIOU | áéíóúýÁÉÍÓÚ | acute accents |
| ^ | aAeEiIoOuU | âÂêÊîÎôÔûÛ | circumflex |
| " | aeiouyAEIOU | äëïöüÿÄËÏÖÜ | umlaut or diaeresis |
| , | ,cC | ¸çÇ | cedilla |
| ~ | nNaAoO | ñÑãÃõÕ | tilde |
| s | s | ß | sharp s |
| t | h | þ | small thorn |
| T | H | Þ | capital thorn |
| - | dD | ðÐ | eth |
| / | oO | øØ | O with stroke |
| / | u | µ | micro or mu |
| a | a | å | a with ring |
| A | A | Å | capital A with ring |
| a | e | æ | ligature ae |
| A | E | Æ | capital ligature AE |
| " | " | ¨ | diaeresis (8859-1), s with caron (8859-15) |
| | | | | ¦ | broken bar (8859-1) capital S with caron (8859-15) |
| ^ | ! | ¦ | |
| ' | ' | ´ | acute accent (8859-1), capital Z with caron (8859-15) |
| , | , | ¸ | cedilla (8859-1), z with caron (8859-15) |
| 1 | 2 | ½ | fraction 1/2 (8859-1) ligature oe (8859-15) |
| 1 | 4 | ¼ | fraction 1/4 (8859-1) ligature OE (8859-15) |
| 3 | 4 | ¾ | fraction 3/4 (8859-1) capital Y with diaeresis (8859-15) |
| Business | |||
| L | = | £ | pounds |
| Y | = | ¥ | yen |
| c | / | ¢ | cents |
| 0 | x | ¤ | currency (8859-1) Euro (8859-15) |
| ( | c | © | or 0 c, copyright |
| ( | r | ® | registered |
