Extending a US keyboard for European languages

My PC has a US keyboard, but I sometimes want to speak Italian, German, Spanish or French, and would like to type characters with accents, umlauts, cedillas, etc. Any suggestions about the most convenient way to do this? It seems that there ought to be both:
- key combinations to produce these characters; and
- a table to click on and select the characters (as there is in Microsoft Word)

I expect it is possible to copy characters from Word but I haven't tried it - too awkward and slow. Thoughts?

A.S.

You can set different language keyboard styles in Windows and swap back and forth. Trying to remember how to do it - it's been a while. I assume other types of OS have the same thing.

Settings --> Regional and Language Options.

I hope that's useful info. As I recall there's a keyboard shortcut and a setting thingummy on the taskbar.

Yeah, mess with the language settings. These features are available. I use them for Portuguese all the time!

Yes, you can set up keystroke commands to toggle back and forth between different languages. The drawback of the international keyboards is that they use common keys such as the question mark to make accented letters. You have to memorize the new locations for these characters, or keep a template handy.

I tried using the Spanish one, but found that the native speakers I conversed with didn't bother with accents, so I gave it up. It didn't seem to interfere with communication - you can usually get the difference between si and si from context. I've noticed that Portuguese speakers tend to use them more.

Thank you all for your help. I found the language settings in Control Panel in Windows XP. How do I learn which keys produce the special characters? I don't see anything in the task bar.

The microsoft web site lists the font maps: http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/keyboards.mspx

but you have to use Internet Explorer, and they aren't easy to print. I would search online for a better image of the particular language you are interested in.

You can also buy stickers and templates to overlay on your regular keyboard, e.g.,
http://www.datacal.com/international-overlays.htm

For German umlauts you can spare yourself the trouble there's just ä, ö, ü and ß, which can be written as ae, oe, ue and ss. Many Germans started to write the umlauts that way too, since the first MMORPGs running on US servers (Ultima Online, Everquest etc.) didn't support umlauts. Also, some Germans use the american keyboard layout for easier access to characters like \ or /.

Many accents can be added by typing ´, `or ^ followed by a letter, to get an é or è for example. If you need umlauts and accents only occasionally (vendor texts, advertisements etc.), you can also copy them from the charmap (Start --> Execute "%SystemRoot%\System32\charmap.exe". Or memorize the ASCII code and use the numpad; hold the Alt key down and type 0241 on the numpad to get an ñ for example.