I need shortcuts for three non-english vowels on my Surface--help?

[Abacinator]

Isn't that the opposite of how it works?

 

[DucatiHoney]

OK - did the character map thing. That takes a while, but it's reliable. This may be the best way to do this, as the combination of keystrokes still doesn't seem to yield the letters I need consistently.

I wish the character map could be parked on the desktop. Anyone know if that's possible?

 

[BillSmith]

LINK Two ways to keep Character Map on your desktop

 

[DucatiHoney]

Now we're cookin' with gas! Thanks. Excited to look into this.

 

[Abacinator]

Wow! You're really excited about that!

 

[DucatiHoney]

If you're talking about the dupe post, that's BARF's doing, but I am pretty excited about this. I'm starting to have to write a bit in dansk, so I welcome this speeding up of my efforts.

 

[BillSmith]

Alsø wik

 

[DataDan]

If copy-and-paste from the character map works without rejecting the input as you saw with keystroke entry, it's probably not an autocorrect problem. So it seems like Word is just grumpy about the special keystrokes.

Another possible solution, then, is implementing those 6 characters as macros and assigning a keyboard input to each one. I've done that, using ALT+SHIFT+A for Å, ALT+A for å, etc.

Trouble is, it's a bit of a PITA to set up, and you'd probably need help. Also, you'd have to start with a macro-enabled template, a small inconvenience but still inconvenient. And, I'm doing this on a desktop computer, not a Surface, so there's no guarantee it would solve your problem.

If nothing else works out for you, and you'd like to try the macros, I've included them below. You would probably have to ask someone local for help installing them in a template and showing you how to define shortcuts.

Sub Macro1()
    Selection.TypeText Text:="Å"
End Sub


Sub Macro2()
    Selection.TypeText Text:="å"
End Sub


Sub Macro3()
    Selection.TypeText Text:="Æ"
End Sub


Sub Macro4()
    Selection.TypeText Text:="æ"
End Sub


Sub Macro5()
    Selection.TypeText Text:="Ø"
End Sub


Sub Macro6()
    Selection.TypeText Text:="ø"
End Sub

 

[DucatiHoney]

Many thanks, Dan. I’m very likely to need a hand with that, but let me see what I can make happen.

 

[BillSmith]

Lots of better solutions than these next two proposals,

AutoCorrect can be 'told' to offer your necessary Danish version or,

Use FIND/REPLACE to correct everything after the fact.

Actually, FIND/REPLACE isn't all that bad. One time, document wide placement of proper characters over vowels.

 

[DucatiHoney]

Will find/replace work if I tell it to replace all occurrences of "aa" with "å", as an example--or will it change all instances of "a" with "å"? There's also the challenge of only wanting to replace some instances of "ae" with "æ". (I don't use find/replace very often, so I don't know how sophisticated it is.)

 

[DataDan]

Will find/replace work if I tell it to replace all occurrences of "aa" with "å", as an example--or will it change all instances of "a" with "å"? There's also the challenge of only wanting to replace some instances of "ae" with "æ". (I don't use find/replace very often, so I don't know how sophisticated it is.)

Find/replace can replace a pair of characters with a single character, so the "aa" to "å" would work as you'd want it to. In the case of "æ", you might do something like type "a~" and replace that.

EDIT: Oh yeah: One of the options for find/replace is "Match case" (click the "More" button in the lower left corner of the box), which is off by default. So you can turn it on and separately replace "A~" with "Æ" and "a~" with "æ".

 

[BillSmith]

Back-in-the-day, would use something unlikely to be an actual letter pairing or word to denote a long word, character string or phrase.

In your case, designate A* for that Stargate-looking Å.

 

[FLH03RIDER]

Ms. D, et al

Ok, I have a few questions.
What do the Danish people use in Denmark?

(Ok, jeg har et par spørgsmål.
Hvad bruger danskerne i Danmark?)

What about "Translator" in Office 365? Would that work?
(Hvad med "Oversætter" i Office 365? Ville det virke?)

Wouldn't the Danish version of MS Office 365 have this ability incorporated in it? If so, wouldn't purchasing a copy be worth the cost seeing that this is a serious long term investment?

(Ville den danske version af MS Office 365 ikke have denne evne indarbejdet i den?Hvis ja, ville ikke købe en kopi være værd at omkostningerne se, at dette er en alvorlig langsigtet forpligtelse?)

Ok, I'll stop now cause I'm probably on a south bound freight and you all are on the California Zephyr heading north.

 

[DucatiHoney]

That works if you don’t want to learn how to compose a sentence on your own. I can talk into my computer and have it poop out the Danish translation in type. Your sentences look/sound good to me (for whatever that’s worth!) better than mine on my own for sure!

 

[DucatiHoney]

Just to close this out: A huge shout-out to Data Dan for his assist on this. He and I communicated via PM and an excellent solution was found.

Mange tak to others for their recommendations. I'm signed up for my third Danish course, starting next month. I'm hoping to practice my skills next May on a trip there.