I doubt that you’ve ever heard of the small computer utility Diacrit. But if you ever need to write using foreign accent marks — mañana, amigo — and other special characters, this little tool is invaluable. I rely on it almost daily.
Of course, one can turn to Microsoft’s character map or even learn the various shortcut keys. But that’s a hassle for writers who only need this facility occasionally. More significant, not all programs recognize these shortcut keys, requiring more arcane steps to enter such characters. For example, I use an expensive bibliographic program, yet it’s a major task to enter book titles and author names with proper accents without the help of Diacrit.
Diacrit solves the problem. One simply calls up the program, indicating which language or character set one needs,, and a small box containing the characters appears on-screen Whenever one needs a special character, one just copies and pastes it into place.
Bits du Jour, or its alter ego Iconico, is making this convenient tool available at half price, only $9.75, this Wednesday only. You can download it right now for evaluation, but payment must be made on Wednesday. This is a fully-functional version, and it can even be reinstalled in the event of a crash.
As regular readers know, I have no affiliation with Bits du Jour or Diacrit.
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