As much as I would like to completely switch over to Linux, for some tasks I am unfortunately still stuck with Microsoft Windows. This comes with the issue that Windows natively does not ship with the keyboard layout that I am routinely using under Linux: US International (No Dead Keys).
Fortunately, there is an easy solution available: Using the The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator it was a matter of seconds to remove the dead keys from the the stock US International keyboard layout.
The resulting keyboard layout file is available for download for your convenience. You can easily import this file into the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator and turn it into installable keyboard layout DLLs.
Tags: English
Just what I was looking for! Thank you very much… I really like AltGr shortcuts, but I hate ‘ and ” to be dead.
Now if only I could find something as simple that went the other way. I like the MS USInternational Keyboard and hate using the AltGr keys. I’ve been using the MS UsInternational for years now…’+C should = ç not ć ‘+S should = ‘s not ś. Hard to believe there isnt an off the shelf keyboard out there that mimics the MS version.
Curt, I am not sure whether I fully grasped your comment: You wrote that you are essentially looking for an MS US International keyboard layout, but for which platform (as it is already available for Windows)?
[...] to change the United-States International with a tool called Keyboard Layout Creator. I found this blog post that explains how to do it. In this post they just remove the dead keys from the quote key which is [...]
Bärig! Hat super geklappt. Genau das, was noch gefehlt hatte, um meine Windows 7-Installation brauchbar zu machen. Vielen Dank!
I’ve been trying to create a (partial) unicode keyboard to get around this problem. I also didn’t like the dead keys that were chosen with US int’l keyboard so I set out to write my own which didn’t touch any of the US keyboard keys but added dead key sequences to other key sequences which you wouldn’t normally type, for example altGr = / for ≠.
http://grant.org/mgrant/uscmpse/windows-compose-key.html
This is work in progress, I’m going to try and add some more sequences. I’m currently trying to figure out how to get a double-dead sequence so I can compose 3 keys.
Michael Grant
so if you’ve removed the dead keys, how do you type the accented characters normally accessible via those dead keys? like “a acute” (normally ‘+a) or “nasal a” (~+a)?
The accented/special characters I need on a daily basis are accessible via AltGr. I am primarily typing German, though, so all I need are äöüß. Results may vary for other languages.
The MS US International keyboard layout seems to lack the Interpunct (this dot: L·L).
This character is needed for several languages so they should consider adding it to this layout so they can really call it International.
As for roberto’s problem:
I think you could promote AltGr + the former deadkeys to be a replacement deadkey.
So AltGr+’ would be the deadkey instead of ‘ , etc.
Then if you would need à (a grave) you could type: [AltGr+`]+ [a]
instead of [`][a] like you would with the standard deadkeys.
Great post, and great tip.
I’d already created my own version of the US International keyboard layout in MSKLC that shifts the ‘/`/\/^/~ dead keys onto AltGr+ combinations before I found this, but it’s good to see that I wasn’t alone in finding it rather lame that the only way to get access to international characters on Windows was to sacrifice the normal operation of five crucial punctuation keys, making writing anything involving lots of punctuation, especially code such as HTML, CSS, PHP, etc., damn near impossible.
Moving the accent triggers to AltGr combinations doesn’t make it any more difficult to use accented characters but does allow for completely normal operation of the standard US layout key set for the majority of usage, with all non-standard characters accessible through one single modifier key.
I hope that someone at Microsoft is reading this and taking note.