Is there a way to insert polish language letters while keyboarding so the names and place names are written correctly?

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: polish ancestory.

MattieH

Is there a way to insert polish language letters while keyboarding so the names and place names are written correctly? thank you.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@MattieH, that depends on your setup (OS, hardware, settings). FamilySearch does not offer any sort of keyboard utility (except for a limited "insert" chart in indexing).

If you are able to copy and paste text on your device, then the conceptually simplest method is to find a page (on a website or in a document) with the character(s) you need, copy the character, and paste it into the appropriate place on FamilySearch. (It may help to first paste it into a text document, to strip it of formatting and other code nonsense. Some places in FS are plain text and you don't need to worry about this, but other places -- like this forum -- can go absolutely bonkers from an ill-timed "paste".)

Achieving non-English (i.e. non-ASCII) characters via a keyboard depends greatly on your operating system; Windows does it differently from Mac, Mac isn't the same as iOS, and I haven't a clue about Android and whatever else is out there.

In Windows, there are two keyboard-based other-character input methods: alt-number combos and installed keyboard layouts. I don't know about Polish characters, but I know that 7 out of the 9 non-ASCII characters in Hungarian have alt-number shortcuts in the standard U.S. keyboard layout. (Websites on alt-number combos generally ignore this fact, but the combos are layout-dependent.) Installing a keyboard layout is actually fairly simple, but it's a one-time thing for each device, so I never remember how to do it.

MattieH

Dear Julia,

Thank you very much. I am using win 8.1. I added the polish langauge to the computer, and made an image copy of the Polish language keyboard. Now when I need to write a name or place name, there is a quick way to switch from Eng to Polish and back after I am done.

I appreciate your help and insights.

Every good wish,

Mattie