# Any replacement for AllChars?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-replacement-for-allchars/833235>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 29, 2019, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-replacement-for-allchars/833235 "2019-04-29T22:17:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-replacement-for-allchars/833235/1 "2019-04-29T22:17:44Z")

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I used to use a program called AllChars that made it easy to enter accented characters and other things like cent signs. It trapped the ctl key when you hit it and released it without using and then looked at the next two chars. E.g. if you did ctl (and release) then 'e, you got an e with acute accent. It stopped working with Win-7. Is there anything similar that works on Win-10?

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-replacement-for-allchars/833235/2 "2019-04-29T22:25:26Z")

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Control Panel \> Region and Language and you can install something like US-International keyboard. Then usually your right Alt key is used to enter. If you don’t like the way that works you can also install a third party alternate (e.g. [this one](https://www.scottseverance.us/html/keyboard/win_intl_altgr/) though I haven’t tried it).

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**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-replacement-for-allchars/833235/3 "2019-04-30T00:21:51Z")

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Looked. There were several dozen English keyboards, but US international was not one of them.

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**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-replacement-for-allchars/833235/4 "2019-04-30T00:29:49Z")

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Unichars is what I used to replace it: it is very similar.

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**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-replacement-for-allchars/833235/5 "2019-04-30T00:50:17Z")

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Finally, I googled it and found something called WinCompose available on github, which I sort of trust and it seems to do work. Let me test: é. It uses right alt, instead of ctl, but I can live with that. (I think it can be reconfigured, but I won’t bother.)