I learned today that the key on my keyboard that reads “Alt Gr” stands for alt graph. Now mostly fallen out of use, the key is used as a modifier to add characters to a keyboard that don’t fit.
The default keyboard layout on windows doesn’t take advantage of this fact, but if you enable the English-International layout, a whole new world of symbols opens up. I can now output ©, ¿, æ, ×, and ø without needing to access a special menu.
Adding shift to the mix unlocks even more characters: ¢, §, ¹, ÷, and Æ.
What use this information actually has is limited to when I want to write the copyright sign, but even so, neato!
The biggest downside to switching your keyboard language to English International is that it messes with your quote key. Instead of outputting ‘ when I type it, it waits to see what character comes after. Most of the time that’s fine; when I type don’t, or Jerry’s, everything is wonderful, but if I type LÉfant Plaza it comes out as that, rather than L’Enfant Plaza as it should. The same goes for the quote key, which makes opening quotes difficult.
On the other hand, it does make typing ¿That’s under ©? a lot easier.