Make a US Keyboard a UK Keyboard

I figured this out tonight, and thought I'd share it with everyone else -

Go into the Languages control panel and switch your language to UK English.  You'll see a little EN on the task bar. Click it, and you can toggle between UK and US English. It will place the £ above the 3 key, and # above enter.  It also moves around " and @, but since you can flip back to US English easily, I haven't found it a problem at all.

It is pretty handy. I have mine set to US international so I can also do handy signs such as © ¢ ° ñ é 

I'm just glad I don't have to copy/paste out of the Character Map anymore for £!

I switched mine to UK keyboard about a year ago, so I'd be ready when we moved. Last week, DH (we rarely ever use each other's computers) was trying to type a list of email addresses and got so discumbuberated it was hilarious. He finally had to have me do it because he couldn't find the @ sign. Teehee.

I have mine set as US international so that the @, ', and a few other keys work properly.  When I had it set to UK, the @ (above the 2 on a US keyboard) was in a different position (near enter/return on a UK one) and " was above 2.  I have # above 3, $ above 4, and £ right-alt (AltGr) above 4.

Remember that on a PC you can also enter foreign characters using the Alt key plus number keypad.  Try Alt-156 or Alt-0163 for a £ sign (i.e. press & hold Alt, type 156 or 0163 on the numeric pad, then release Alt).

When I had it set to UK, the @ (above the 2 on a US keyboard) was in a different position (near enter/return on a UK one) and " was above 2. 

There are some aspects of IBM PC keyboard design which have always been something of a mystery, and this is one.  Many computer and teletype keyboards had " over the 2 at one time, in part because the assignment of ASCII codes could make this easier for the hardware.   

However, the symbol arrangement on the original IBM PC keyboard was based on the IBM Selectric typewriter, which had @ over 2 and " over ' just to left of the return key.  British versions of the Selectric had exactly the same arrangement, so why IBM decided to swap @ and " for the U.K. PC keyboard is anybody's guess.   

It's like the mystery of the backslash key.  The original IBM PC design placed it between Z and the left Shift key, a practically universally loathed position where anyone used to a normal keyboard would keep hitting it every time he went for the Shift key.  The revised American keyboard for the PC/AT a few years later moved \ to the upper right so that the left Shift key could be wider and right next to Z where it belongs, but for some reason this was never changed on the U.K. keyboards, which are stuck with \ between Shift and Z to this day.

Remember that on a PC you can also enter foreign characters using the Alt key plus number keypad.  Try Alt-156 or Alt-0163 for a £ sign (i.e. press & hold Alt, type 156 or 0163 on the numeric pad, then release Alt).

Sadly, trying to use Ascii codes on my laptop doesn't work

I keep having to go into character map and copy/pasting!

Remembering the Alt+numbers is too much for me to remember. I much prefer the US international.

Remembering the Alt+numbers is too much for me to remember. I much prefer the US international.

I miss being able to use them. When I had Toshiba laptops, I could still do it, but for some reason my Sony laptops (I'm on my second) won't let me do it.  It's so frustrating!