MS Word provides a method that is almost as good under the "Insert", "Symbol" menu.  When the character map set appears, set the font to the default font you are using (Not Symbol!).  Look for the characters you want, and then highlight them.  The shortcut for accessing it appears in the lower part of the dialogue box.  For example, accented vowels are made by typing Ctrl-'(apostrophe), then the vowel.  The ñ is typed by selecting Ctrl-Shift ~, then N.  The Upside-down question mark is Alt-Ctrl ?.   This is not terribly troublesome, but I recommend using the actual Windows module, which accomplishes the function in a more natural way.  Furthermore, pc's in cybercafes in other countries are likely to have these alternative keyboard drivers installed as the only available keyboard, so you would be better off to learn to use it now rather than after you spent money to sit at a computer in a coffee shop in Tegucigalpa.  (However, there will not be an option to toggle back and forth, so you will HAVE to use the Latin American keyboard layout)

If you are installing this keyboard on a computer here on campus, or using a computer that already has the keyboard installed, click here

click here if you installed the keyboard, but are having difficulty making it toggle back and forth between Spanish & English.  (common with Windows 95)

For Macintosh users: the process is very similar, but functions much more smoothly--go to "Control Panels", select "Keyboards" and "Languages" then choose the "Spanish" keyboard.  There are two, and it appears that the non-ISO version is identical to the Windows "Spanish Modern Sort" that I recommend.  The indicator will be an American flag or a Spanish flag on the launch bar.  There are no reported problems.

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In my opinion, the Windows keyboard drivers provide the best way to access foreign characters.  Further, this module is integrated into the Office Suite so that it triggers the Spanish spell check, etc. as soon as you start the document.  Also, it functions in ALL Windows software, including your web browser for typing characters into Google or web mail.  This is not available if you limit yourself to the MS Word-based character access, or the cryptic keyboard shortcuts like "ctrl - apostrophe - e = é" or "alt - ctrl - ? = ¿"  It's practical in Microsoft applications like Word, but it won't work at all in other applications or your web browser and it doesn't really trigger the language modules in Word anyway.

Once installed, the Windows keyboard interface is instantly changeable. You just hit the left alt-shift keys together and it will toggle back and forth between English and Spanish. The non-alphabetical and non-numerical keys are then different.  The left bracket key: [  becomes a dead-key that puts an accent above the next vowel you type.  The shift of that key: { becomes a dieresis dead key for creating: ü.   The colon/semi-colon key becomes a: ñ and Ñ.  The apostrophe and quote key becomes: { and [   The  key in the upper left under the backspace that has the backslash\and broken line: \ |  becomes: } and ].  The dash and underline key becomes: ' and ?.  The equals sign/plus key becomes: ¿ and ¡  The comma and period keys remain the same, but the shift of those keys becomes the semi colon and colon.  The slash/question mark key becomes: - and _   the left apostrophe and tilde key clear up in the upper left hand corner becomes | and ° while the shift of the numerical keys results in:

1!  2"  3#  4$  5%  6&  7/  8(  9)  0= 

Click here to view the complete keyboard layout map from Microsoft

There is no plus sign or backslash  on the Spanish keyboard, but you can toggle back quickly to the English keyboard for those.

A little box in the lower right hand corner (near the little speaker icon and the clock--this location is called "the tray") tells you which keyboard is running. You have to install an extra driver for each language keyboard you want, and then it will toggle in a series between all of them: German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Arabic, you name it. You can do all of them if you want, and change instantly. It also works through all software: word processor, e-mail, html editor, whatever.

Click here for Windows 95/98 instructions

For Windows XP, which is on most computers on our campus, and nearly every new PC, do the following:  (Windows 2000 is very similar)

Add Foreign Language Keyboard

1. Start
2.  Control Panel
3. Date, Time, Language and Regional Options (for Windows 2000, "Keyboards")
4. Add other languages
5.  Select "Language" tab and click the "Details" button
6.  On the "Settings" tab, click the "add" button
7.  Choose one of the Spanish languages and keyboard layouts.  I recommend "Spanish Mexico" which defaults to the Latin American keyboard.  For French, I recommend “French Canada”.
8.  Click the "Language Bar" button on the Settings tab and a dialogue box pops up with four boxes to check.  Uncheck all of them except the top one: "Show language bar on the desktop".  The more boxes you click, the more cluttered will be your language toolbar.  The others are not necessary for the mere use of Spanish/French keyboards.  Click OK. 
9.  IMPORTANT: If you forget this next step, it is very difficult to switch between the keyboards!!!  Back on the Settings tab again, click the "Key settings" button.  The first item in the dialogue box is "Change input languages".  It should default to "Left Alt-Shift", which works nicely.  If not, click the "Change key sequence" button to alter it.  The only one that matters for this purpose is that one.  I leave the others blank. 
10. Select OK, and apply....  close all those tabs and control panel.  You should notice a small tool bar floating at the top of the screen with a small square containing the letters En, Es or Fr (English, Spanish, French).  When you click the left alt-shift, it should toggle back and forth.  You can also left click right on that icon and change that way. 
11.  I advise also that you click the "minimize" button on the right end of the toolbar, which will put just the little En/Es icon down in the tray near where your clock is.  That makes it less obtrusive on your desktop.  You're done.
12.  The default keyboard will remain English, and whenever you start a program, it will probably toggle back to the default.  So, open Word, THEN toggle the keyboard. 
13.  When using MS Word 2000, MS Word XP or newer, the first time you try to apply spell check, thesaurus and translate, Word will have to install the modules and drivers for that.  Just wait while it does it.  On campus, this is automatic.  At home, you may need to dig out your Word or Office CD that you used to install the software.  This is a very handy tool for reading comprehension as well as writing assistance.  One easy way to apply this for the first time is to highlight a block of text in the language, click “Tools” then “Language” then “Set Language”, from the list select the desired language.  This should trigger the installation of proofing tools. 

Using the Internet for Source Material (useful for SPAN 2000 students doing the Web Assignment)

If you are copying a Web page into a Word document, the proofing tools (Thesaurus, Spell check, grammar check) do not work if the text is inside of a table cell.  The vast majority of web pages will be in this format.  If you want to use Word to help you read (Synonym and Translate tools), then you'll need to get rid of the table cells.  (Note: It appears that the Word 2003 version has resolved this problem)

First, there may be an easy way out of the following steps.  If there is a link to a printable version of the page (common on newspaper sites), then you can click it, and simply bock copy the text and paste it in.  If not, you'll need to do this:

Block copy and cut the text OUT of the cell and paste it back into the document below the black line box so that it’s not inside of a table cell.   DO THIS ONE CELL AT A TIME, or it will copy the table with it.  Make sure you only highlight the text.  If the black highlighting jumps to fill the whole table, it won’t work right.  If the highlighting only extends over each line of words, it will work. 

For example, this is how a typical web page will look when pasted into word:

If you highlight the text starting at the top with “Mascotas”, and block down, each time you jump across a cell in the nested tables, the highlight will jump across to encompass the entire cell, making each cell look completely and solidly black:

If you then try to cut and past that, you will get the same thing you started with.  If you start inside the cell that contains the main text, highlight that first, being careful that the black highlight only includes the lines of text (by not crossing a table cell line), then cut that, it will work fine:

Then cut, and scroll down to the bottom where the cell ends and paste the text there:

 Go back to the top and cut the titles separately:  Mascotas, and Vida Citadina, or simply type them in by hand.  Once you have cleared out the contents of the cells, you can highlight all those table cells 

And then just “Delete”.  Presto! It’s all gone and you have text free of table cells, which will then allow the Word proofing tools to work on the document. 

If you fail to find it in the c:\windows\options\cabs\ folder, then it must be located on your hard disk or the original Windows 95/98 CD-ROM by browsing through it.  There is a set of compressed files containing this information.  They are known as "cab" files, which is a special type of data compression or archive.  There are over twenty different ones, and your machine will know which one of them it needs.  They are all located together, so it doesn't matter that you pay attention to which one of the cab files it needs--once you find the whole mass of cab files, your machine will select the right one, extract the needed keyboard driver information, and then install it.  The problem you are encountering if you are reading this is that your installation of windows doesn't "know" where your cab files are located.

Here's how to search for the mysterious cab files.

1. Start
2. Find
3. Files/Folders
   TO SEARCH ON YOUR HARD DISK
4. set it to search only inside the C:\windows
5. use the browse button to set it to C:\, then select the windows folder.
6. be sure to click the "include subfolders" box.
7. In the "Named" line type this exactly: win95_*.cab (if you have windows 98, the files will be called DRIVER19.cab etc, so instead of win95*.cab, type exactly: DRIVER*.cab
8. then hit "find now"
9. It will scan the disk and should find the whole cluster of cab files. Write down the full path name of the cab files. Remember there are about 28 of them. The one you are looking for is #19 or #20 as I recall, but it doesn't matter because they are all together and the computer will know which one once you tell it which directory/folder to look in.
10. the path SHOULD be: c:\WINDOWS\options\cabs\
11. *when you go to install the driver AGAIN,* you will need to click the browse button,
12. select the windows folder, then the options folder, then the cabs folder.
13. IF THE resultant path you get from the File Find is not the same as I indicated above, take careful note of which folder it is in, and apply the same procedure of clicking folders from left to right in sequence.
14. If you fail to find either win95_*.cab files or DRIVER*.cab files for win98, then you will have to search your CD ROM the same way for the disks
15. On my Windows 95 CD, they are right out in front of the CD, not down in any folder. In my Windows 98 CD, the DRIVER files are in the folder named win98.   Your CD-ROM drive will be labeled according to how many disk drives you have.  Assuming you have one hard drive and no zip drive, your ROM drive is called D:
    
    Your cab files will be in D:\  for Windows95  and D:\win98 for windows 98.

Here is the sequence of commands for Windows 95/98:

USING FOREIGN LANGUAGE KEYBOARDS ON-CAMPUS

This function can be used on any computer on the campus.  Language lab computers are already set up to work this way.  Other computers in the labs probably need to have it installed.  Before proceeding with an installation, make sure it's not already there.

If the computer you are using does not appear to have the Spanish keyboard installed, return to the top of this page and follow the instructions for installing it.

If the toggle (switching back and forth between keyboards)  does not work, see below:

TOGGLE PROBLEMS

With Windows 95 (the older version of Windows, no longer present on campus), you may encounter this problem:  you have installed the keyboard driver and the icon appears in the tray, but is stuck so that you cannot toggle between keyboards, try these tricks.  If you are on campus and encounter this problem, go directly to Trick #2:

Trick #1: Simply restart/reboot your computer.  This usually solves the problem. 

Trick #2: Open "My Computer", but just ignore it.  Try toggling now.  Apparently opening a folder/window will trigger a mysterious event that allows the keyboard to toggle.  Leave "My Computer" open while you work.  If you later need to toggle it again, but it appears to be stuck, simply click "My Computer" on the bottom launch bar, so that it is on top, toggle the keyboard, then go back to your e-mail or word processor.  Sometimes you have to wiggle this back and forth to get it to work right.