Accents in Final Draft

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  • Accents in Final Draft

    How do you make accent symbols in Final Draft? Somebody told me once and I can't find it, and the internet is awash with insanely complicated ways to accomplish that.

    I wanted one for the word touche. Thanks.

  • #2
    Re: Accents in Final Draft

    This is a work around for the moment, but find the word with the accent(s) properly included via say Google and copy & paste it into FD (or many other programs). It does work. I've done it before and even tested again just now.

    I also did it for this post: touché
    Will
    Done Deal Pro
    www.donedealpro.com

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    • #3
      Re: Accents in Final Draft

      Thanks! That does work and it's fantastically easy.

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      • #4
        Re: Accents in Final Draft

        You bet.

        And as a side note for whatever it's worth, I pasted "touché" in the slugline as a test. It won't show has having an accent when displayed in FD but does show correctly in a PDF when saved as such.

        Thus "TOUCHÉ," even when copy & pasted with the proper accent, appears as INT. TOUCHE - DAY in the FD file when writing/viewing it. But when saved as a PDF it will show as INT. TOUCHÉ - DAY. So don't let that throw you.

        This might prove help if the name of one of your locations has an accent in it, such at the INT. TOUCHÉ CAFE - NIGHT or EXT. MUSÉE JACQUEMART-ANDRÉ - DAY.
        Will
        Done Deal Pro
        www.donedealpro.com

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        • #5
          Re: Accents in Final Draft

          or open your character map

          START --> All programs --> Accessories --> system tools --> Character maps (on Windows 7 anyway. Bill's evil minions most likely changed it for the next version of windows).
          I heard the starting gun


          sigpic

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          • #6
            Re: Accents in Final Draft

            Originally posted by Southern_land View Post
            or open your character map

            START --> All programs --> Accessories --> system tools --> Character maps (on Windows 7 anyway. Bill's evil minions most likely changed it for the next version of windows).
            I believe SBdeb looked at that. I know I did. Here is a link: http://kb.finaldraft.com/article/1001/1284/

            But this was/just seemed faster and easier. A quick cheat. Obviously not something you could do on a deserted island without the Internet, but easier.
            Will
            Done Deal Pro
            www.donedealpro.com

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            • #7
              Re: Accents in Final Draft

              Will wrote: And as a side note for whatever it's worth, I pasted "touché" in the slugline as a test. It won't show has having an accent when displayed in FD but does show correctly in a PDF when saved as such.

              Thus "TOUCHÉ," even when copy & pasted with the proper accent, appears as INT. TOUCHE - DAY in the FD file when writing/viewing it. But when saved as a PDF it will show as INT. TOUCHÉ - DAY. So don't let that throw you.
              Hmm ... I do not know what happened there. I tried pasting <touché< into FinalDraft 10, as Action and as a Scene Heading, and it worked fine. The accented é displayed.

              You have a number of ways to insert special characters from the ANSI or extended ASCII character set (characters like touché, CAFÉ, hören, façade, vis-à-vis, château).

              METHOD 1: The Windows Character Map

              For people who only rarely use special characters, the best method is to use the Windows Character Map. It is only complicated the very first time that you use it. After that, you can keep it pinned to your Taskbar as a small icon that you can pop up at any time. I still use Windows 7, but I checked on the Internet for how to get the Character Map in Windows 10:

              First, find the Character Map. You may be able to use Windows Key + r and type charmap, or you can open All Programs and find it. Select the Character Map when it appears. You can then choose to pin it to Start or to the Taskbar for easy access in the future. I suggest the Taskbar. Then all you have to do is to click the icon in the Taskbar when you want to make the program pop up. You can easily find your special character and copy it.

              METHOD 2: Utility called "Unicode Input by Name"

              The Windows Character Map only has a limited number of special characters (it will have the accented characters in Western languages).

              If you want to use certain special symbols and letters that are less common (like the square root √ or the integral ∫), you need to use Unicode. Unfortunately, Final Draft does not support Unicode. Also the font that you use has to include the Unicode characters that you use. By the way, the Final Draft Courier font includes some Unicode characters, though Final Draft cannot use them.

              However, Fade In supports Unicode. If you wanted to have a teacher write a square root problem on the blackboard, you could type:

              Code:
              The teacher writes on the blackboard:
              
                             x = √(4a²)
              If you are using a font that has that Unicode character, it will display and print properly.

              To enter the square root symbol, you use the free utility called Unicode Input by Name. (If you cannot get the program there, you can try this address on my website.)

              To install this utility, download it and unzip it to any folder that you want. Then run the uibn.exe file. It is helpful to create a shortcut to the utility. When you load it, it sits in the tray at the bottom of your screen. The downside to the program is that you have to know the name of the glyph, like <square root< or <integral<. But you can easily learn the ones that you use, like the é, which falls into a group called <Latin small letter e< and includes things like é, è, ë.

              METHOD 3: The United States-International Keyboard

              This is the method that I use, but my experience has been that I cannot convince anyone else to use it. It is not a physical keyboard. It is simply a driver that you choose for your keyboard. I am not going to go through the method to select it, but you can easily google how to do it. The driver is part of your Windows installation. You just have to select it.

              The keyboard works by turning a few of your keys into "dead" keys, which simply means that you get nothing when you press that key, until you press it again or press another key. For example, to create é, I press ' and then press e. The initial press of ' does not do anything. But if I next press a vowel like o, I get ó. If I really want a ' as in the word <don't<, I just hit ' again, or I hit the <t< in <don't< after I have pressed '.

              It takes about three days to get used to this kind of keyboard driver. Really, it is easy. And switching back and forth between the regular United States keyboard and the International version is easy. I have been doing this over twenty years.

              The driver has some other shortcuts, too, like right-Alt + s to produce the German double s: ß and ' + c to create the French cedilla ç.

              As I said, I can never convince anybody to use this keyboard driver, but it is great.

              "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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              • #8
                Re: Accents in Final Draft

                I use ComicBent's method #2. The char map function works with all versions of Windows that I've had on my computers and is pretty easy to employ with Final Draft.

                Late Night Writer

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                • #9
                  Re: Accents in Final Draft

                  I use ComicBent's method #2. The char map function works ...
                  I think you meant Method #1 ... but that's cool.

                  By the way, on a somewhat related topic, if you want to have a particular equation displayed in some manner, you can create the equation with Word or some other program with an equation editor, then make a screenshot of it, and save it.

                  In Fade In you can actually insert a graphic like that into your script.

                  I still keep hoping that I can get someone to try the US-International keyboard. A little keyboard icon is sitting in the tray at the bottom of my screen right now. If I click it, a menu shows the available keyboard drivers. The US-International keyboard is selected, but all I have to do is to click the US keyboard to go back to the standard keyboard that people in the US are familiar with.

                  "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Accents in Final Draft

                    I just type option e and then the letter I want an accent.

                    é á í ó ú É and shift for capitals.

                    ¡
                    option exclamation point for ¡these!

                    option n ñ for tilde.

                    Works in most programs. I have a Mac.

                    -Spanish Teacher

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                    • #11
                      Re: Accents in Final Draft

                      With Linux (at least with the Ubuntu variants, like Linux Mint) you can assign a "Compose" key (I've used my right Windows key, since I have no other use for it). Then you just press the Compose Key, then the other two (you don't have to hold the one down while typing the other).

                      For ë you press Compose+", e.
                      For ẽ you press Compose+~, e.
                      For ô you press Compose+^, o.
                      For á you press Compose+', a.
                      For à you press Compose+`, a.
                      For € you press Compose+=, e.
                      For £ you press Compose+-, l.

                      For special characters like the en dash, you can learn the Unicode numbers and type them in by pressing shift+Cntrl+u (all held down simultaneously) and then the four digit number of the character. En dash is 2013 – which is nicer than --.

                      touché TOUCHÉ £ €

                      I guess the Compose key is basically a temporary "dead key" solution (like Will's #3).

                      I hardly ever use these characters so a permanent dead key keyboard wouldn't be desirable for me – although it is available in Linux Mint.

                      EDIT: Here's how a Ubuntu user uses his the U.S. English International keyboard, which is basically the same without having to use the Compose key. My problem is I use the quote marks a whole lot more than I use special characters.

                      Here is an answer close to 1st answer, with a little alternative: I do not need to use compose because I set my keyboard to English US international instead of English US or English UK.

                      So I use the following combo:
                      " then e for ë
                      ' then e for é
                      ` then e for è
                      ` then a for à
                      ~ then n for ñ

                      and
                      " then spaceBar for "
                      ' then spaceBar for '
                      ` then spaceBar for `
                      ~ then spaceBar for ~
                      Alt Gr plus 5 for €
                      https://askubuntu.com/questions/358/...rs-like-%C3%AB
                      Last edited by Centos; 11-11-2017, 12:21 PM.
                      STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I'm a wannabe, take whatever I write with a huge grain of salt.

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