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 1.0 (.zip archive for Win32; 18KB)
To install US-1252, download the zip file and extract its contents to a folder, then double-click kbdcois1.msi 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, kbdcois1.klc, which is included in the zip file can be processed by the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator version 1.3.
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 | ||||||||||
| 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 | ¶ | |||||||||
| œ | Œ | ø | Ø | |||||||
| rR | ® | |||||||||
| sS | ß | Š | ℠ | |||||||
| tT | þ | Þ | ™ | |||||||
| uU | ú | Ú | ù | Ù | û | Û | ü | Ü | ||
| vV | ||||||||||
| wW | æ | Æ | å | Å | ||||||
| xX | ||||||||||
| 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 “latin small letter s with caron” (š, code point 0x9A) and the “soft hyphen” (code point 0xAD) are not represented in this version of US-1252. The omission of the former is a mistake; if a subsequent version of US-1252 is released, this will be corrected, probably at the expense of moving either the “latin small letter sharp s” (ß) or the “latin capital letter s with caron” (Š).