Typing Welsh vowels with diacritics

You can add a diacritic, like a to bach (circumflex) or accent, to a vowel character using your keyboard. You can also add these characters using the ‘Insert Special Characters’ menu in the Lawmaker Editor.

Microsoft Windows provides several built-in methods of typing these characters, including:

• the Welsh keyboard layout, which includes keyboard shortcuts for adding diacritic characters;

• the Character Map, a standalone application containing all special characters, which allows you to copy and paste selected characters into any other application;

• the Windows key + . shortcut, which opens a pop-up menu containing an option to insert special characters directly.

This page provides guidance on how to use these methods to insert Welsh vowels with diacritics.

Using the ‘Insert Special Characters’ menu

In the Editor, click the infinity icon in the toolbar to open the ‘Insert Special Characters’ menu:

By default, this pop-up menu shows a selection of commonly used special characters. Once you have followed the steps below, the menu will contain your most recently selected special characters (i.e. Welsh vowels with diacritics), to allow you to insert them quickly without opening the full menu.

Click the ‘More symbols…' link at the bottom of the pop-up.

This will open a modal which contains a database of all special characters, with a search bar at the top:

Type in the search field at the top to begin searching for the characters you need. You can use several methods to find Welsh vowels with different diacritics:

• Search for the name of a letter followed by ‘grave’, ‘circumflex’, ‘diaeresis’, ‘acute’ to quickly locate the small and capital versions of each letter:

  

• Search for ‘latin letter’ followed by the letter to see all variations of that letter:

  

• Simply search for ‘circumflex’, ‘grave’, ‘acute’, or ‘diaeresis’ to see all characters with those diacritic marks.

To add a character, click on it. This will add it to the ‘Selected characters’ field at the bottom of the window.

You can add multiple characters to this list by searching for and clicking on more than one character. This is a quick way to add multiple characters into your list of recent special characters.

For example, in the screenshot below, several characters have already been selected:

Click ‘OK’ to insert the characters into the document. You can then delete them from your document, if needed. The selected characters can now be easily picked from the quick pop-up menu in the Editor:

The table below lists some commonly occurring Welsh vowels and their names in the special characters list. Note that you do not need to search for the exact names in the ‘special characters’ modal shown above to get them to appear in the results; simply searching for ‘y circumflex’ should result in ŷ and Ŷ appearing as the top results. The table below is provided for reference.

Using the Character Map

Windows includes a standalone program which lists all special characters and allows you to copy and paste them into other documents.

To open the Character Map, click the Windows button and type ‘character’ - the top result should be the Character Map:

Scroll through the list of special characters and click on the one you need to insert. (You do not need to change the font selection at the top of the window.)

Click ‘Select’, then ‘Copy’ to copy the character to your clipboard.

Place your cursor in your Lawmaker document, at the location where you want to place the special character. Press Ctrl+V to paste the character at that location.

Using the “Emoji and more” pop-up

Pressing the Windows key and the full-stop key together will open the following pop-up menu:

Click the special characters button at the top of the pop-up to switch to a list of special characters.

A list of recently used characters is shown at the top. Scroll down the list (or use the quick links at the top of the pop-up) to go to Latin symbols, where you will find a list of all Latin characters with various diacritic marks, sorted alphabetically.

Click on a character to immediately insert it at your cursor’s location in your Lawmaker document.

Using a keyboard shortcut

The method below will work if you have installed the Welsh keyboard layout in Windows. Scroll to the end of the page to see instructions on how to install the Welsh keyboard and switch between English and Welsh layouts.

The Welsh keyboard layout in Windows is almost identical to the English layout, except for the addition of the keyboard shortcuts described below.

If your keyboard has a number pad, disable Num Lock by pressing the ‘Num Lock’ key before using the keyboard shortcuts below.

This method can be used for all Welsh vowels: a, e, i, o, u, w, and y.

First, switch your keyboard to Welsh (CYM) if not already on that setting. A quick way is to use the keyboard shortcut windows key + spacebar to cycle through the keyboard layouts you have installed.

Adding a ‘to bach’ ( ^ circumflex)

1. Press ALT GR + 6 (Press and hold the ALT GR key, press the 6 key, then release both keys.)

2. Press the key for the vowel you want.

This should result in â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, or ŷ.

“Press ALT GR + 6” means:

• press and hold the ALT GR key,

• press the 6 key while still holding down the ALT GR key,

• release both keys.

The same applies for the other instructions below.

Adding an acute accent (´)

1. Press ALT GR + '(apostrophe key)

2. Press the key for the vowel you want.

This should result in á, é, í, ó, ú, ẃ or ý.

Adding a grave accent (´)

1. Press `(grave accent key, to the left of 1 key)

2. Press the key for the vowel you want.

This should result in à, è, ì, ò, ù, ẁ or ỳ.

Adding a diaeresis (¨)

1. Press ALT GR + 2

2. Press the key for the vowel you want.

This should result in ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ẅ or ÿ.

Installing the Welsh Keyboard layout

If you have already installed alternative language keyboards on your Windows device then you will see a language icon in your Windows toolbar at the bottom-right of the screen, to the left of the network/Wi-Fi icon:

Clicking the language code ('CYM' in the screenshot above but usually 'ENG') will show a menu of all installed layouts:

If this language selector isn’t there, or if Welsh isn’t present as an option in the list, you can add it by clicking the Windows button and searching for “Add a language”, then following the link to the settings page.

Alternatively, you can follow Microsoft’s instructions to install a language pack, here: Language packs for Windows - Microsoft Support

Note that you don’t need to install either of the additional language features ('Basic typing' or 'Handwriting') for the keyboard layout to work.

You can cycle through the available layouts at any time by using the shortcut windows key + spacebar.

Video demonstration

In the video linked below, we demonstrate the various methods to add Welsh diacritics in your document.

https://youtu.be/FR-6P6GoJX0