Changing keyboards to type ã and ø characters

These changes will allow the ã and ø characters to be typed using just ctrl+a and ctrl+o

If, like me, you are worried about making such changes in case something goes terribly wrong and you can't reverse it - don't worry.  For normal typing, you will not notice anything different when using your keyboard.  These changes are easily reversible by following the same procedure below and undoing the changes in step 6.

Make sure that you can see this note while you are making the changes (either on screen or print out a copy).

For Word 2007:

1          Open Word, click on button in top left corner 

2          Click on ‘Word Options’

3          Click on ‘Customize’ in left menu

4          Click on ‘Customize’ near the bottom

5          In this window, drag the left slider to the bottom to ‘Common Symbols’

           Click on that line to highlight it in blue.

           Drag the right slider down to the ã symbol, click on it to highlight it

6          Click on the line in the ‘Current keys’ box which will have ‘Ctrl+~,A’, to highlight it in blue.

            Put the cursor into the ‘Press new shortcut key’ box

            Press the ‘Ctrl’ and the ‘A’ key down at the same time

            The ‘Assign’ box in the bottom left becomes highlighted.  Click on the ‘Assign’ button.

7          Repeat the process for ø, using ‘Ctrl’ and ‘O’.

8          For the capital letters, Ã & Ø, do the same using ‘Ctrl’, shift and ‘A’;  ‘Ctrl’, shift and ‘O’.

9          If you wish, as you are doing this, the old keystrokes (Ctrl+~,A etc.) can be deleted

Last revised: 24 August 2011