# £ (do all nations see the pound sterling sign on the internet?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 23, 2003, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-nations-see-the-pound-sterling-sign-on-the-internet/190307 "2003-07-23T03:27:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-nations-see-the-pound-sterling-sign-on-the-internet/190307/21 "2003-07-24T11:07:41Z")
Not Alt-4, _Ctrl_-Alt-4. Hardly worth effort for everyday use I know, but it might be useful if you were writing a macro on a keyboard with no Alt Gr key. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-nations-see-the-pound-sterling-sign-on-the-internet/190307/22 "2003-07-24T11:08:44Z")
No, Ctrl-Alt-4. This is all news to me, though, and further experimentation reveals that you can use AltGr-vowel or Ctrl-Alt-vowel to get acute accents (except A, for some reason), and Ctrl-Alt-H closes all running programs immediately! The things you learn here… ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-nations-see-the-pound-sterling-sign-on-the-internet/190307/23 "2003-07-24T11:21:25Z")
Thanks **Usram**. Sorry, **everton** , I misread your post. CTRL-ALT-H, eh? Is there a list of these amazing keyboard commands anywhere? ---
**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-nations-see-the-pound-sterling-sign-on-the-internet/190307/24 "2003-07-24T11:36:33Z")
**Usram** : There may be a problem with your keyboard mappings – I get an accented á (and it works with capitals too if you’ve got hands like Chopin). **jjimm** : I don’t know about an official list, but [here are a few useful suggestions](http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~etfreedman/articlekeyboard.htm). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-nations-see-the-pound-sterling-sign-on-the-internet/190307/25 "2003-07-24T11:47:54Z")
[Here’s](http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard/keyboardresults.asp?Product=1) a full list for Windows 2000. No wonder nobody knows how to use them! ---
**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2003, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-nations-see-the-pound-sterling-sign-on-the-internet/190307/26 "2003-07-25T10:22:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AHunter3 \* > **jjimm: > The pound sign is an upper-ASCII character, as opposed to being in the original 128 which are more standard across-platform than the upper 128.** There is no such thing as “Upper-ASCII”. > [@](#): > > **Option-3 gives me a pound sign in MacWrite under Macintosh System 1 (1984 vintage OS and fonts and program) and every American-English MacOS since then. jjimm may be right that European releases were different, especially with the Euro (€).** You are speaking of proprietary characters sets used on various platforms, these are not ASCII. The euro sign, for example, is a trait of ISO-8859-15. \*\* > [@](#): > > As I said, upper ASCII was never as standardized. \*\* Then there’s no reason calling it ASCII. ASCII is a _standard_ (American Standard Code for Information Exchange), not a generic term for the first few characters in a character set. There’s an [article](http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=ascii&go=Go) at Wikipedia which explains this better. Please visit there before speaking of an “upper-ASCII” again. UnuMondo [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-all-nations-see-the-pound-sterling-sign-on-the-internet/190307.md?page=1)