Milossarian, I routinely use MS-Word in different languages and with different language keyboards so, yes, I am quite familiar with what you are saying. What is your question then? You can get spell checkers for any language but that has nothing to do with the configuration of your computer or its keyboard. Just get the Brazilian dictionary for WORD or WORKS. What’s the big deal? Why did you call MS and HP to complain about the keyboard? What does the keyboard have to do with your word processor? Maybe HP and MS suck but in this case I think you are blaming them out of nowhere. I can’t see what they have done wrong. Maybe I am missing something.
Milossarian, what you asked in the OP is not what you are asking now
Yes, something happens. It is just not what you wanted to happen. You are tweaking the wrong thing. If you want your word processor to change lannguage proofing, then you have to do that in the word processor. But if you ask “how can I change the keyboard language?” and then complain the text you selected in your word processor did not change, then the answer is “because you asked how to change the keyboard”. After all this confusion I believe what you meant to ask is “how do I change language in the word processor?” I can only answer for MS-WORD which is Tools - Language - Set Language. I hope this answers what you wanted to know (if not what you actually asked).
Re doing what you desire with respect to spell checkers, most modern word processers have selectable, alternate customizable dictionaries. I suppose you could custom edit a dictionary to have correctly accented Portuguese spellings as the default correct words with English words flagged as the wrong spellings to be corrected to the “correct”, properly accented Portuguese word. It seems, however, that this would possibly take a phenomenal amount of work for one person to construct.
Altough it would require a little more work in adjusting to the layout a Portuguese keyboard (see link below) might be a better solution in the longer run. Since it’s USB I suppose it’s possible you can have it hooked up along with your regular keyboard and switch off as desired. It’s only $ 29!
http://www.hitechcafe.com/eshop/product.asp?sku=G062-0021-002+B&dept_id=18
Parabéns pra você
Parabéns pra você
Nesta data querida
Muitas felicidades
Muitos anos de vida
O Milossarian faz anos
O azar é só dele
cada ano que passa
Ele fica mais velho(a)
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If I change the dictionary my word processor program is using, haven’t I just changed a configuration in my computer?
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See? Now if you’da said that without the snide question at the end, and with the general demeanor and expression of a Moonie, Microsoft and HP would be recruiting your for their support team right now.
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I didn’t complain about the keyboard. I complained that I changed control panels - keyboards - languages to Brazilian Portuguese, and it didn’t do anything toward making appropriate accent marks for Brazilian Portuguese.
If I’m understanding you correctly, all they had to say was that that particular feature is something different, that what I really needed to get was a Brazilian Portuguese dictionary, then set the auto-correct on my word processor with it chosen, as I saw fit.
I guess they are rather easily sidetracked for support people who are charged with answering questions from people who know less about computers than them. But then, it seemed rather baffling here, too.
I guess I suck.
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It might. I’ll check.
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Well, apparently there is still some confusion on somebody’s part. I want something that will not only do it on my word processor, but also when I’m typing an email, talking on an instant messenger, etc.
Perhaps I’m bumming, unless I get an actual Portuguese keyboard. Or I suppose I could download a Brazilian version of Internet Explorer, and log on in it when I’m going to be talking with someone from Brazil on the 'Net.
Except my Portuguese isn’t that good yet.
Then again, a computer-geek friend of mine who works for an Internet company that I emailed about this subject seems to think there is some way. He said his friend has a Russian wife who writes to the folks back home in Cyrillic on a standard keyboard, through some specialized software.
Another thing to note - if I’m understanding my friends in Brazil correctly, they aren’t typing “nao” in some special way that puts the ~ over the “ao.” They type n-a-o, and it happens automatically.
It seems like I should be able to get some augmentation to at least my word processing program that allows me to do the same, without having to replace my American program in total with a Portuguese one.
Or not. sigh
I believe you still do not have a clear idea of the different functions of the keyboard, the OS and the different utility programs. I guess explaining things clearly is not my forte so I give up and I’ll just let someone else who can do a better job take over.
To answer the question of what exactly that little thing on the taskbar does when you switch it from english to portuguese: it changes what characters the keys on your keyboard generate. It may not make any difference switching from English to Portuguese if Portuguese keyboards mimic English ones. However, if you buy a keyboard in France, the top row will say “AZERTY” instead of “QWERTY”. So if you switch your keyboard layout to French, and then hit the Q key on your keyboard, it will type the letter A.
As far as I know, there’s no built-in software to automatically decide from context that you wanted to type ‘n with a tilde’ instead of ‘n’, and I’m not really surprised about that. Auto-correct type features are okay in a word processor, but having them globally affect everything would be really annoying and arguably wrong (i.e. what if I telnet to my unix machine where my password is “cabana”?).
I had similar problems, but using Spanish.
Here is my first ever 2 cents post:
Since I only needed Spanish to write letters, I decided to look only for a word processor solution. I found that MS-Word also has a “Set language” option under Tools/Language. (Word 97) It will give you several choices to select the dictionary and grammar tools. There is even a Portuguese option too, but there is a catch. Foreign dictionaries and grammar tools are not included in the Word CD; a menu that gives choices it doesn’t have is a bad joke. I am sure this is the same in MS-Works. (This is not the Keyboard setup in Windows BTW)
Solutions: either get Word for Windows in Portuguese, MS-Works Portuguese, or the regular MS-Word with a Portuguese proofing tool:
http://www.worldlanguage.com/Products/360.htm
(MS-Word not included)
I could not find any proofing tools for MS-Works in Portuguese.
I did find a way to add other dictionaries and grammar tools to my Word program, but one needs the other MS-Word language edition. As for MS-Works: what you need is also the proper dictionary and grammar tools installed. I have the suspicion that Microsoft will not sell the dictionary as a plug-in, but will sell you only the whole program in Portuguese. As it does with MS-Word. I hate that!
Yes, one can indeed use the regular US keyboard in Windows to write messages in other languages, and in the case of Spanish I found that the keyboard mapping is almost the same (Portuguese also, I hope), so I did not change my keyboard. If you still want to get the right characters while typing, get labels from
http://www.worldlanguage.com/Portuguese/Products/1124.htm
The Portuguese software still needs to be added though.
I found that the AutoCorrect feature in Word does what you are looking for, but personally, I still prefer to NOT use the AutoCorrect. It really distracts me while typing. Instead I proof the documents at the end and then Word puts the accents in the right place. I then cut and paste the finished message from Word to the mail program. If you use MS Outlook, you can set it to make Word be the default message editor. (Just about the only reason why to use Outlook) I may be wrong but I think there is a way to have MS-Works do the editing in Outlook too. But this will only be useful if you already have the Portuguese edition of Works installed.
Hope this helps.
Hi Milo,
I type using a Dvorak keyboard layout, but I use the standard US 101 keyboard. Everyone else who uses my terminal types in standard QWERTY, so having the toggle button on the task bar comes in handy. Often is heard the cry of “Damn you Barbarian, I just typed gibberish.” <user toggles button>
What you have done by altering the keyboard control panel is alter the map of your keyboard. What you now have to do is experiment. Grab some tape and a pen, and then type every single key on the board. Then hit and hold shift and do the same thing. Then alt, alt-shiftand so on and so forth. Whenever you find something that’s different, mark it down.
Good luck.
Somebodu already said this but I’ll repeat it as it is the solution to the problem. Buy a portugese keyboard witha USB connector. Plug it in. You now have two keyboards you can switch between depending on the language you are using. Really simple and relatively inexpensive (keyboards are cheap).
The function you are looking for is called character mapping. The us-english keyboard (start/settings/controlpannel/keyboard) does this for all us-english characters. Certain languages which use special charcters (French, Spanish, Portuguese, cryllic, Russian, German and the list goes on and on) have special keyboards. Yes, thats right, they make and sell 50 different types of keyboards. If you want to type protuguese without a hastle, buy a portugues keyboard. They have all the special keys for all your special character needs. That means they have a special ã key and so on. Otherwise, you’re stuck with typing using alt+number-code (e.g alt+0227 gives ã). See the program charcatermap (windows\system32\charmap.exe) for the list of alt+number codes you need. There may be special programs that do this for you, but again, you’ll have to look for it.
teh being changed to the is a function of word called autocorrect. Go to tools/autocorrect and browse around a bit. It has all the automatic changes… for english. You can add special autocorrects as well. e.g. I have one which types my company name when I enter the first three letters. Unfortunately, it does this all the time, even when I don’t want it! If you want this in portuguese, sorry buddy, you’ll have to buy a portuguese version of word or… do all the changes yourself (hellofajob). Simply using the protuguese dictionary is NOT going to do this for you, as it is a different feature.
b.t.w. I think you owe Sailor an apology. He’s trying to help you out FOR FREE and all you do is give him attitude.
I do appreciate it.
And sailor, if I came off poorly with you, I apologize. Especially if I was perceiving swipes at me that did not exist.
You don’t seem to understand that I understand that a keyboard is just a dumb instrument, sending input to the smart instrument that is interpreted and converted into an n when you type an n; an S when you type an S, etc.
I get that.
I didn’t think changing control panels - keyboards - languages would change anything on some mysterious “keyboard memory;” I thought it would change the way the computer (i.e., the operating system, the word processing system, maybe even the internet system) interpreted certain combinations of keyboard strokes, with the particular selected language in mind. When I saw all the different languages listed, I assumed that my computer had embedded software to support the changes I envisioned. I’m now seeing that is incorrect.
I cannot explain this any further than I already have. Sorry if I’m frustrating you. But I’m frustrated. Because I’m certain that what I want can be accomplished, and without all that much difficulty. But thanks for trying
As for everybody else, I now understand what you all are saying about the toggle between the two languages on my tool bar.
But, galt said:
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Absolutely nothing different happens, no matter which language it is set upon. This is no doubt because none of the letters are different in Portugal or Brazil, many just have funky accents, depending upon how they are used (like the cedilla c in nacao, which unfortunately I can’t make for you, even when I do the manual thing that’s supposed to work and make it).
GIGObuster - This sounds like the plan for me. Since I do most of my typing to folks in Portuguese not in letters but on the Internet, I’ll see what a Portuguese Outlook Express does for me. This will be difficult, as my Portuguese still sucks immensely. But I think their web pages are laid out identically, so if I get an English version up with the Brazilian version, I should be able to figure out what to do.
Also, does anyone know how my friends over there are getting their accent marks put in place automatically as they type? Or maybe I misunderstood them. I’ll ask again next time.
With the spanish keyboards I’ve worked with they have special keys for o ò ó ô or whatever. There’s a key between ctrl and alt called alt_gr (or something else depending on the keyboard model and manufacturer). If you hit alt o you get ò if you hit alt_gr o you get ó if you hit alt+alt_gr o you get ô and so on.
I think this is what your portuguese friends are talking about.
I won’t go into how keyboards work because I can’t explain it without going into way too much detail on all sorts of stuff.
However, you can simuate certain keystokes using the alt+number-code I described in my earlier post. In terms of function, The system does not notice the difference between the two. actually, randomly clucking away can give you some pretty weird (interesting?) results. Give it a go 
I’m not sure using Brazillian outlook will give you the result you want, but give it a go and see what happens.
Good luck.
Let me explain how Brazilian Portuguese computers worked in '92, the last time I was living in Brazil. Before I start let me comment that it is quite possible that Iberian Portuguese is different, as I know for a fact that Microsoft releases different versions of their programs for each (unlike French or Spanish which only gets one version). So I don’t what the differences may be between the setups. It is quite possible that Iberian uses a different methodology than Brazilian.
That said 98% of the Brazilian keyboard maps directly to the American English keyboard. If you type a f you will get an f. The way diacritical marks were handled was that instead of offering a different key for a, á, and ã you insted use a combo of keys to get your mark. To get ã one would type ~a. The computer or typewriter would then combine the two. An á was 'a. The only exception was ç which was in place of the ;. So the only way you would know your keyboard had mapped diferently would be to try your ;. if you get ç you are using a Brazilian mapped keyboard the other marks still require a two keystroke combo. As I said this personal experience dates for '92 so this may have changed.
As far as getting an auto fill in your programs, you need a program that does that. As GIGObuster pointed out Microsoft requires that you buy a completely different copy of the program in the language you are looking for.
I hope this helps.
Hmmmm… That sounds suspiciously familiar, Bartman. Thanks for verifying my original post!
Sigh. Read the bold parts of what I wrote. Don’t get pissy and insist that you get it when you obviously aren’t reading what people are telling you. I’m sure if you set it to frickin’ Canadian there’s no difference, either, but it’s demonstrably wrong to say “nothing different happens, no matter which language it is set upon.” For example, you could set it to, oh, I don’t know…FRENCH to illustrate this point.
As has been explained, the Portugese layout is undoubtedly highly similar to the English layout. Want to know one that isn’t? Cyrillic. Change it to Russian (Greek will do the trick as well). Then bash out some input. If it doesn’t come out in funny letters, then there is a problem. I would bet large sums of money that it will work, however.
It is possible that they are running what in effect amounts to a keyboard sniffer. It could take all input from their keyboard, and if there was a special character (~, accent, whatever), it could deal with it appropriately with regards to the proceeding letters.