Today’s topic is iPad and Mac diacritical marks.

If you’re using your iPad (or Mac) for genealogy, you probably need to add diacritical marks to names and places. If you’re a native English speaker like me, getting your keyboard to produce these characters may be an unfamiliar process.

A diacritical mark is a glyph (mark) added to a letter that changes how words are pronounced. These marks may appear above, below, within a letter, or in some cases between two letters. Ø, ü, è, ñ, ß, ÿ, ī, å are all examples of diacritical marks added to letters.

There are several ways to add diacriticals to individual letters on your iPhone, iPad, and/or Mac.

  1. Press lightly and hold the keys any vowel or C, L, N, S, Y and Z, then select the accented versions from the menu. (Shortcuts to legal and financial symbols appear by pressing and holding characters on the numerical keyboard.)
  2. Visit Adobe for a printable chart of the keyboard shortcuts for the standard Mac  OS character set at adobe.com/type/pdfs/characcessmac.pdf.
  3. Visit the MacStories site for another list of navigational shortcuts by clicking here.
  4. Use the OS X Keyboard Viewer, part of the Mac OS X operation system, to reveal hidden diacritical characters by holding down the Option, Shift and other modifier keys. Go to Apple’s support page for this app for a tutorial. These extended characters are also available on an iPhone or iPad if you add a Bluetooth keyboard.
iPad and Mac Diacritical Marks

Courtesy Ergonis Software

  • Consider the PopChar app for a complete and easily accessible set of diacriticals for Mac OS X. Ergonis.com makes this application and I find it well worth the cost for its ease of use.
  • Change the iPad’s settings to use keyboards for different languages and hardware layouts. Apple states, “Unlike physical keyboards, you can change the format of a software keyboard. This will also change the dictionary used for auto-correction, the number of letters on the keyboard, and the arrangement of the keys (for languages with alternative keyboard layouts).” Visit support.apple.com/kb/HT4509.

iPad and Mac diacritical marks can be an important part of your family history research, if you know where to find them.