Entering Special Characters in the X Window System
From Wikistix
In the X Window System (X11), special characters (accented characters, currency symbols, mathematical symbols, fractions, ligatures and other symbols) can be entered using a sequence a keys including a special key defined as the Multi_key.
The Multi_key may be assigned to a convenient key using xmodmap(1). Given that the windows key serves little purpose under a real operating system, it seemed like a good choice:
$ xmodmap -e "keycode 115 = Multi_key"
Or, more conveniently add the appropriate line to your configuration files:
$ cat ${HOME}/.Xmodmap
keycode 115 = Multi_key
$ xmodmap ${HOME}/.Xmodmap
A few examples are:
| Sequence | Name | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Multi_key a ` | Agrave | à |
| Multi_key a ' | Aacute | á |
| Multi_key a " | Adiaeresis | ä |
| Multi_key a e | ae | æ |
| Multi_key o ~ | Otilde | õ |
| Multi_key s s | ssharp (German eszett) | ß |
| Multi_key R O | registered | ® |
| Multi_key c / | cent | ¢ |
| Multi_key Y = | yen | ¥ |
| Multi_key C = | EuroSign | € |
| Multi_key x o | currency | ¤ |
| Multi_key - , | notsign | ¬ |
| Multi_key 3 4 | threequarters | ¾ |
| Multi_key + - | plusminus | ± |
| Multi_key < < | guillemotleft | « |
| Multi_key > > | guillemotright | » |
| Multi_key o o | degree | ° |
| Multi_key 0 * | degree | ° |
| Multi_key - : | division | ÷ |
| Multi_key x x | multiply | × |
| Multi_key u / | mu | µ |
| Multi_key ^ 1 | onesuperior | ¹ |
| Multi_key ^ 2 | twosuperior | ² |
| Multi_key ^ 3 | threesuperior | ³ |
| Multi_key ^ . | periodcentered | · |
| Multi_key p ! | paragraph | ¶ |
| Multi_key ? ? | questiondown | ¿ |
| Multi_key | | | brokenbar | ¦ |
| Multi_key ! ^ | brokenbar | ¦ |
| Multi_key . . | ellipsis | … |
| Multi_key : . | therefore | ∴ |
| Multi_key < ' | leftsinglequotemark | ‘ |
| Multi_key > ' | rightsinglequotemark | ’ |
| Multi_key < " | leftdoublequotemark | “ |
| Multi_key > " | rightdoublequotemark | ” |
A list of many of the possible special characters that can be entered can be found in files named something like:
- /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose
- /usr/X11R7/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose
- /usr/share/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose
- /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose
