Mac-like Special Characters in Windows
I am a bit of a geek for proper punctuation: Em dashes��� en dashes��� curly quotes��� ellipses��� I love them all! Prior to 2007, I was a long-time Windows user and was a master of the Alt numeric code system of entering special characters on that operating system.1 For nearly a decade, however, I���ve been writing and developing on a Mac and I absolutely love how much easier it is to use special characters. When I started setting up my new Surface Book, I began searching for a way to bring Mac-like special character entry to Windows 10.
Disclaimer: I take absolutely no credit for the code you see below. I will give full credit to the sources as I discuss each. I just wanted to bring it all into one place so it���ll save you a few hours of research to get everything working.
Step 1: Set up AutoHotKey
David Nagel���s solid article on mapping keystrokes in Windows, I introduced me to AutoHotKey. It���s an incredibly powerful program that���s like the lovechild of TextExpander and Quicksilver.
In his article, David walks through the process of getting set up with AutoHotKey:
Download & install it.
Create a new .ahk file (New > AutoHotKey Script in Windows Explorer) and name it whatever you like.2
Right-click the script, and choose Edit Script from the context menu.
Enter some keyboard shortcuts (more on that in a moment).
Save the script. I chose to save it to Dropbox to make it portable.
Double click it to run the script.
Open up your favorite writing tool and see your handiwork in action.
Step 2: Create some shortcuts
AutoHotKey is completely scriptable and adding shortcuts is relatively straightforward. There are a few reserved characters, but once you understand what they are it���s pretty easy to get going very quickly. Here���s Dave���s intro example:
!-::���
! -::���
view raw
sample.ahk
hosted with ❤ by GitHub
In AutoHotKey scripting, ���!��� stands in for Alt and ��� ��� stands in for Shift. So, to translate:
Alt - will produce an en dash (���)
Shift Alt - will produce an em dash (���)
With these two examples, I was able to jump right in and map many of the most common shortcuts I use while writing. Before I got too far, however, I realized I really needed accents, umlauts, and the like. I searched some more and eventually discovered a post in the AutoHotKey forum archive by ���Veil��� from way back in 2008.
Veil broke his solution into two parts, but I���ve combined them here to make it easier for your to copy into your AutoHotKey script file. This code has provided everything I���ve needed so far, so Veil���wherever you are���thank you!
#UseHook
!VKC0SC029::Return ; grave -> the grave ` accent gave some probs, used the virtualkey scancode instead
!e::Return ; acute
!i::Return ; circumflex
!t::Return ; tilde
!u::Return ; umlaut
; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1
; 0
; r g G a A c C t T u U
*a::diacritic("a","��,��,��,��,��,��,��,��,��,��")
*e::diacritic("e","��,��,��,��,��,��,e,E,��,��")
*i::diacritic("i","��,��,��,��,��,��,i,I,��,��")
*o::diacritic("o","��,��,��,��,��,��,��,��,��,��")
*u::diacritic("u","��,��,��,��,��,��,u,U,��,��")
*n::diacritic("n","n,N,n,N,n,N,��,��,n,N")
*y::diacritic("y","y,Y,y,Y,y,Y,y,Y,��,��")
diacritic(regular,accentedCharacters) {
StringSplit, char, accentedCharacters, `,
graveOption := char1
graveShiftOption := char2
acuteOption := char3
acuteShiftOption := char4
circumflexOption := char5
circumflexShiftOption := char6
tildeOption := char7
tildeShiftOption := char8
umlautOption := char9
umlautShiftOption := char10
if (A_PriorHotKey = "!VKC0SC029" && A_TimeSincePriorHotkey < 2000) {
if (GetKeyState("Shift")) {
SendInput % graveShiftOption
} else {
SendInput % graveOption
}
} else if (A_PriorHotKey = "!e" && A_TimeSincePriorHotkey < 2000) {
if (GetKeyState("Shift")) {
SendInput % acuteShiftOption
} else {
SendInput % acuteOption
}
} else if (A_PriorHotKey = "!i" && A_TimeSincePriorHotkey < 2000) {
if (GetKeyState("Shift")) {
SendInput % circumflexShiftOption
} else {
SendInput % circumflexOption
}
} else if (A_PriorHotKey = "!t" && A_TimeSincePriorHotkey < 2000) {
if (GetKeyState("Shift")) {
SendInput % tildeShiftOption
} else {
SendInput % tildeOption
}
} else if (A_PriorHotKey = "!u" && A_TimeSincePriorHotkey < 2000) {
if (GetKeyState("Shift")) {
SendInput % umlautShiftOption
} else {
SendInput % umlautOption
}
} else {
if (GetKeyState("Shift") or GetKeyState("Capslock","T")) {
SendInput % " " regular
} else {
SendInput % regular
}
}
}
;
; Alt Shift key
;
*!1::altShift("��","/")
*!2::altShift("���","���")
*!3::altShift("��","���")
*!4::altShift("��","���")
*!5::altShift("8","fi")
*!6::altShift("��","fl")
*!7::altShift("��","���")
*!8::altShift("���","��")
*!9::altShift("��","��")
*!0::altShift("��","���")
*!a::altShift("��","��")
*!b::altShift("integral","i")
*!c::altShift("��","��")
*!d::altShift("partial difference","��")
*!e::altShift("��","���")
*!f::altShift("��","��")
*!g::altShift("��","��")
*!h::altShift("overdot","��")
*!i::altShift("^","��")
*!j::altShift("delta","��")
*!k::altShift("��","Apple")
*!l::altShift("��","��")
*!m::altShift("��","��")
*!n::altShift("~","��")
*!o::altShift("��","��")
*!p::altShift("pi","Pi")
*!q::altShift("��","��")
*!r::altShift("��","��")
*!s::altShift("��","��")
;*!t::altShift("���","��")
*!u::altShift("��","��")
*!v::altShift("v","lozenge")
*!w::altShift("epsilon","���")
*!x::altShift("approximately equal","��")
*!y::altShift("��","��")
*!z::altShift("Omega","��")
*!-::altShift("���","���")
*!=::altShift("!=","��")
*![::altShift("���","���")
*!]::altShift("���","���")
*!`;::altShift("���","��")
*!'::altShift("��","��")
*!\\::altShift("��","��")
*!,::altShift("","��")
*!.::altShift(">=","breve")
*!/::altShift("��","��")
altShift(accented,accentedShift) {
if (!GetKeyState("Shift")) {
SendInput % accented
} else {
SendInput % accentedShift
}
}
view raw
osx-special-chars.ahk
hosted with ❤ by GitHub
Step 3: Run your script when Windows starts
The last thing you���ll want to do is add your .ahk file to Windows��� startup items. Dave covered that in his piece as well:
Create a shortcut to your file (Right click > Create Shortcut)
Run shell:startup (��� Win R opens the Run dialog or you can type ���Run��� in the Cortana Search Box)
Move your shortcut to the folder that opens.
Once you���ve followed those steps, you���re done. You can update your .ahk scripts needed and just double click it to replace the instance that���s currently running.
If, like me (and Dave and Jonathan and Dan), you���re using Windows after a long time in Mac land and you���re a typography nerd, hopefully you���ll find this helpful. And if you come up with any improvements to the character mapping, please share!
I actually memorized a ton of the codes, much to my amazement. I still remember a few, but I am thankful to have reclaimed a bit of that memory space over the last few years. ↩
If you shun the mouse, you can create a text file in your favorite editor and name it with the .ahk extension, but you might run into character encoding issues. I created mine in VS Code as UTF-8, but had to open the file in Notepad and re-save it again to get it to actually work. I never figured out the exact issue, but I thought I���d give you a heads-up. ↩
