US-1252

US-1252 is a Windows keyboard layout for US keyboards designed to allow easy entry of characters in the Windows-1252 character set without interfering with familiar US-ASCII typing.

version 1.1 (.zip archive for Windows; 255KB)

Changes in version 1.1: The five key combinations from version 1.0 that don’t use dead keys (left single quote, right single quote, left double quote, right double quote and non-breaking space) still work, but version 1.1 also produces those characters using `+g,`+h,`+j,`+k and `+x. Since combinations with the control key are often intercepted by programs, it’s better to get used to the `+ combinations. Version 1.1 also moves š to `+s (to match Š) and moves ß to `+b to make room for it.

To install US-1252, download the zip file and extract its contents to a folder, then double-click setup.exe to run the Windows installer. After installation, you must make appropriate settings in the Regional and Language Options applet in the Windows Control Panel to use the new keyboard layout.

The source file, kbdcois3.klc, which is included in the zip file can be processed by the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (maybe... lots of folks, including me, have had difficulty using it on post-XP systems; the keyboard layouts work, just not the tool that creates and edits them).

The design criteria for US-1252 were:

It should be possible to type US-ASCII text and to interact with most applications “normally,” without being aware that a non-standard keyboard layout has been installed.
Every printable character in the Windows-1252 set should be accessible without using Alt+nnn codes.
It should be easy to type Spanish text.

To accomplish this, US-1252 uses dead keys (keys which type nothing when pressed, but combine with whatever key is pressed next) to produce most non-US-ASCII characters. Important: Note that a dead key is not like a shift key (Shift, Ctrl, Alt, etc.). You press and release a dead key before pressing the key it modifies.

The dead keys in US-1252 are:

`~	adds an acute accent, or generates the “most common” variant of a character.
Ctrl+`~	adds a grave accent to vowels, generates the “Yen” sign (¥) with Y, or duplicates the result of following `~ with Shift plus a key.
Ctrl+Shift+`~	adds a tilde.
Ctrl+\\|	adds a circumflex, or generates a “typographic” variant.
Ctrl+Shift+\\|	adds a dieresis.

US-1252 also assigns special values to five other key combinations:

Ctrl+;:	generates the left single typographic quote (‘).
Ctrl+'"	generates the right single typographic quote (’).
Ctrl+Shift+;:	generates the left double typographic quote (“).
Ctrl+Shift+'"	generates the right double typographic quote (”).
Ctrl+spacebar	generates a non-breaking space.

The dead key sequences are given in the following table:

	`~		Ctrl+`~		Ctrl+Shift+`~		Ctrl+\\|		Ctrl+Shift+\\|
	+	+Shift+	+	+Shift+	+	+Shift+	+	+Shift+	+	+Shift+
aA	á	Á	à	À	ã	Ã	â	Â	ä	Ä
bB	ß
cC	ç	Ç					©
dD	ð	Ð					†	‡
eE	é	É	è	È			ê	Ê	ë	Ë
fF	ƒ
gG	‘
hH	’
iI	í	Í	ì	Ì			î	Î	ï	Ï
jJ	“
kK	”
lL	£
mM	µ
nN	ñ	Ñ			ñ	Ñ
oO	ó	Ó	ò	Ò	õ	Õ	ô	Ô	ö	Ö
pP	¶
qQ	œ	Œ					ø	Ø
rR							®
sS	š	Š					℠
tT	þ	Þ					™
uU	ú	Ú	ù	Ù			û	Û	ü	Ü
vV
wW	æ	Æ					å	Å
xX	nbsp
yY	ý	Ý	¥						ÿ	Ÿ
zZ	ž	Ž
1!	¹	¡	¡				¼
2@	²	ª	ª				½
3#	³	º	º				¾
4$	¤	¢	¢
5%	€	‰	‰
6^	¬
7&	§
8*	•	×	×
9(	·
0)	°
-_	–	¯	¯
=+	—	±	±
,<	¸
.>	…
/?	÷	¿	¿
'"	‚	„	„				′	″
[{	‹	«	«
]}	›	»	»
\\|	¦						ˆ	ˆ	¨	¨
SPACE	´	´	`	`	˜	˜	ˆ	ˆ	¨	¨

Note: The three characters in red (℠, ′ and ″) are not in the Windows-1252 character set.

The “soft hyphen” (code point 0xAD) is not represented in this version of US-1252.