To set your keyboard to use multiple languages, go into the Control Panel and open Regional and Language Options. Select the Languages tab. Under the first section of the dialogue box, Text Services and Input Languages, click on the Details button. On the Settings tab in the Installed Services section, click on the Add button. You will get a dialogue box for Add Input Language. Choose French (you have several varieties to choose from), and click OK. Back on the Settings tab for the Text Services and Input Languages dialogue box, click on Key Settings. You will get the dialogue box, Advanced Key Settings. Click on the Change Key Sequence Button, and choose your toggle command. Somewhere you can get it to show you an icon for the language you are currently using, but I can't find it right now. My pc at school shows me a language icon at the bottom of the screen.

French Keyboard http://www.trantor.fi/images/french-layout.gif

Spanish keyboard: http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/spanish/images/kspanish.gif

Canadian French keyboard: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/KB_Canadian_French.svg/540px-KB_Canadian_French.svg.png

You can see that several of the letters (A, Z, Q, W, M) on the French keyboard are on different keys when compared to an American keyboard, while on the Canadian French keyboard, they are the same as on our keyboard. As I said, I had no idea! I thought that European countries used basically the same keyboard we use, at least with respect to the distribution of the letters, since that is the case with the keyboards in Spain.

I also had never noticed that right Alt -GR key, and I understand now why I could never find the ampersand @ on my Spanish keyboard. You have to hold down the right Alt to get to it on the 2 key. I also accidentally discovered the ? sign using right Alt + 5 on the Spanish keyboard. I've always just written out Euros, since it's too much trouble to get into the character map every time I need the symbol.

I used to use those number pad codes until several years ago when a student showed me how to set my keyboard to Spanish. It is great not to have to move my hands off the keyboard when I'm typing. The accented vowels take two keystrokes instead of four with the alt codes, and I don't have to reposition my hands every time I need to type an accent mark or an eñe. Since I frequently email and chat in Spanish, I use the Spanish keyboard almost as much as my English one. At school, I can type a worksheet in half the time it used to take me using those alt codes, even though I still have them all memorized.