Regional Settings and Keyboard Layouts
The EUI has adopted English UK as default Regional Settings and Language Input on all Institute's PCs as well as US International as standard Keyboard Layout:
Regional Settings control the way Standards (like Decimals, Date and Time) and Formats (like Currency and Measures) are represented on your PC.
All standard Institute's computers [1] are set to the following (based mainly on British):
- Numbers and Decimals: Comma as Decimal separator (e.g. 1.000,00)
- Paper Size: A4
- Currency: Euro
- Date: DD/MM/YYY (e.g. 31/07/2011)
- Time: 24-hour (e.g. 17:00)
You may change the settings at your own wish but consider this may negatively affect the outcome of some applications.
For example, changing the regional settings to US (American) will automatically change Paper Size to US Letter format which is not accepted by the EUI PrintShop.
Changing numbers and decimals will affect the behaviour of most mathematical/statistical software, including Excel.
Language Input determines mainly the behaviour of Proofing Tools (like Grammar and Spelling Checker) used by the system and/or compatible software (such as Office applications) when text or data is input.
It tipically determines as well the Keyboard Layout (see further below). For example, if Italian is chosen as Language Input, the system automatically sets the Keyboard Layout to Italian as well.
Computers running the Research Configuration have the full set of language inputs (and respective keyboard layouts) installed whereas computers running Staff Configuration have only the following language inputs (and keyboard layouts) installed [2]:
- English UK
- French
- German
- Italian
- Spanish
Keyboard Layouts are software keyboards that allow to enter characters and symbols not normally found on the (hardware) keybaord connected to the computer.
The default Keyboard Layout on all standard Institute's computers is US International as this allows to quickly type many characters and symbols from different alphabets:
Figure 1: US International Keyboard Layout
How to Use the US International Keyboard Layout
The US International layout makes use of the ', `, ", ^ and ~ keys as dead keys to generate characters with diacritics: a diacritic key is activated by pressing and releasing it, then pressing the letter that requires a diacritic. After the two strokes, the single character with diacritics is generated.
The following diacritics can be typed using the below combinations on a US International keyboard layout:
- ' + vowel ? vowel with acute accent, e.g., ' + e ? é
- ' + c ? ç
- ` + vowel ? vowel with grave accent, e.g., ` + e ? è
- " + vowel ? vowel with diaeresis (or umlaut), e.g., " + o ? ö
- ^ + vowel ? vowel with circumflex accent, e.g., ^ + e ? ê
- ~ + certain letters ? letter with tilde, e.g. ~ + n ? ñ, ~ + o ? õ
To use the dead keys to generate the actual symbols on the key (e.g. accents or quotation marks such as ', `, ", ^ and ~), press the Space Bar after the key.
Furthermore, the US International keyboard layout uses the right Alt key as an AltGr key (shown in blue in Figure 1 above) which supports many additional characters. For example, the combination 'AltGr + 2' will generate the symbol ². and the combination 'AltGr + Shift + :' will generate symbol °.
Please Note: additional functions/characters may or may not be marked on the keyboard, but are always functional when using US International keyboard layout.
Changing to a Different Keyboard Layout
When changing to a different keyboard layout, you need to know by heart the layout of the keyboard you change to, as keys may be marked and placed differently, e.g. using a US (hardware) keyboard (default at the EUI [3]) with the UK software layout, the 'Shift + 2' combination produces " (quotation mark) rather than the @ sign displayed on the key.
The layout can be changed by clicking the language button at the bottom right of the screen. By default the box is marked 'EN' (for English input language):
Figure 2: Input Language box
When you click on this box a list of available input languages will open. Choose an entry in the list to change to that input language and its corresponding keyboard layout:
Figure 3: List of Available Input Languages / Keyboard Layouts
Please note that by changing the Keyboard Layout, the Langauge Input will change to the same language and viceversa.
Remember to change back to the original layout when you have finished working with an alternative layout.
= Except for PCs running Administrative Software were Regional Settings are set to Italian.
= Additional Language Inputs can be requested to your local IT User Support Office (Site Office).
= Eligible users may request International Keyboards as well, if available.
Page last updated on 17 August 2017