10.5: Easily repeat accented characters

Nov 13, '08 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: HairyPotter

In English, you generally do not use accented characters. But for those like me, who do not have English as our native language, accented characters are like the air we breathe. Sometimes you have to repeat accented letters to give some kind of emphasis or effect in the text. Suppose, for instance, that you would like to write something like NOOOOOO! in Portuguese; that would be NÃÃÃÃÃO!

In prior versions of OS X, you would have to type the tilde and then the letter "A" for each accented letter you want to repeat. However, at some point during the recent development of Mac OS X, something changed. Now you just type the tilde (or any other accent you want) one time, then press and hold the desired letter. To our joy, Mac OS X is smart enough to automatically repeat the accented character.

If you try that in Windows and other systems, you will find that only the first repeated letter is accented.

[robg adds: For now, I've marked this one as 10.5 only; I no longer have a 10.4 test system in the house. If this works on prior versions, please let me know.]

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