How to fix your keyboard’s weird symbols
You’re typing away on your computer like you do every day, but all of a sudden your keyboard is on its secondary set of characters (and your “?” is now “È”). What to do?
OK, so this happens at our house all the time, whether it’s me or my wife, Kellie.
Every other day or so we’ll be typing along on the computer keyboard and and you go to use the quote key (“) and it’s “ or È. Huh?
Or when you press the question mark (?), it shows up as É on the screen.
Accidentally, you’ve activated the second set of characters on your keyboard — perhaps another language — and you don’t know how to get it back to normal.
Sound familiar?
Here’s a trick that’s worked for us:
Simply hold down the CTRL key with your thumb and tap the SHIFT key at the same time.
Voila, it works, eh?
This is probably what you did to get you in this mess to begin with.
You may need to do this twice if your computer is set up for three different character profiles.
But it’ll work.
You’re welcome!
doesnt work for me at all :( on a acer laptop :(
Thanks for the friendly answer Marc!
Dont forget going tp control pannel into the language/keyboard settings to get the same results
Thanks a million. This has been happening to me and driving me crazy but ONLY in Incredimail. In Word or other programmes it sets itself right. I’ve gone back and forth and get the old French characters in Incredimail only. But till now I could not fix it. THANK YOU!
um…. what do i do if it didnt work?
Salina,
Right click on the bottom of the Windows screen, click on Toolbars then click on Language bar. You will see an EN or FR or whatever language you have set for your system. Left click on the symbol and choose your language. English Canada will give you a bilingual keyboard, English US or UK will give you an all English keyboard and so on.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This was a lifesaver as the problem apparently occurred just before I shut down Windows 7 (cat walked on the keys). The result was that my Windows logon password would not work and because the characters entered are hidden, I had no way of knowing what I was entering. It looked as if I were going to have to completely reinstall the O/S – and the computer did not come with O/S on disk.
In Windows 7, at least, if you don’t want to change keyboards and languages that easily, you can go:
Control Panel > Clock, Language and Region > Change Keyboards > Change Keyboards > Advanced Key Settings > Change Key Sequence
Switch Input Language to Not Assigned
Switch Keyboard Layout to Not Assigned
Okay
Apply
THANK YOU i can type stuff again omg Must BOOK MARK THIS !!!!!!!????? HAHA IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!ééÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉÉ?????YAY AGAIN!!!!!
I know the trick and it does work for me, BUT I get the problem all the time, each time i start up my computer; when I want to type a website adress with symbols, when I try to make some word document after it… my computer is switching to it’s secondary set all the time and it drives me nuts..
Any suggestions on how to make my pc to be on its primary symbol sets at ALL times ?
Mine did not fix either. ~: G?, ….this is driving me nuts too%!
Any other suggestionsG?
Well, i haven’t did the CTRL+SHIFT thing, but after i read what i had to do, i didn’t had the keyboard problem xd
you rock, thank you very much. i’ve been resorting to alternate methods.
for example: theres no appostrophe.
Thank you soo very much! You saved my day!
This is groundbreaking for me!!!!!!!! I can not tell you how many times this has happenend to me. Thank you soooooooooooo much! To my non-tech-savvy self, you’re a genius!!!
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our small remote town just recently had our first foreign occupants move to here and coincidence? Yup the foreign symbols appear. Hmmmmm twilight zone or? From Canada with Love and Dum Aloo and this one (better bring the frogs in) Maacri kaal anyone?
Ugh…
You. Thank you. I was going crazy. :) <3
Thank you for this very helpful article. I’ve now fixed this laptop I’m using thanks to your advice.
Thank you this is the quick fix to the problem. Have been searching for a solution for days.
Thanks
Thanks to Google and your information – I knew what the problem was but didn’t know how to correct it. Do you turn the other keyboard sets on with Ctrl/Shift?