Editing QWERTY (section)

====Windows====
From [[Microsoft Windows XP|Windows XP SP2]] onwards, Microsoft has included a variant of the British QWERTY keyboard (the "United Kingdom Extended" keyboard layout) that can additionally generate several [[diacritic|diacritical marks]]. This supports input on a standard physical UK keyboard for many languages without changing positions of frequently used keys, which is useful when working with text in [[Welsh language|Welsh]], [[Scots Gaelic]] and Irish — languages native to parts of the UK ([[Wales]], [[Gàidhealtachd|parts of Scotland]] and [[Northern Ireland]] respectively).

In this layout, the grave accent key ({{keypress|`¦}}) becomes, as it also does in the US International layout, a [[dead key]] modifying the character generated by the next key pressed. The apostrophe, double-quote, tilde and circumflex ([[caret (disambiguation)|caret]]) keys are not changed, becoming dead keys only when 'shifted' with {{keypress|AltGr}}. Additional [[precomposed character]]s are also obtained by shifting the 'normal' key using the {{Key press|AltGr}} key. The extended keyboard is software installed from the Windows [[Control Panel (Windows)|control panel]], and the extended characters are not normally engraved on keyboards.

The UK Extended keyboard uses mostly the AltGr key to add diacritics to the letters a, e, i, n, o, u, w and y (the last two being used in Welsh) as appropriate for each character, as well as to their capitals. Pressing the key and then a character that does not take the specific diacritic produces the behaviour of a standard keyboard. The key presses followed by spacebar generate a stand-alone mark.:
* [[grave accent]]s (e.g. à, è, etc.) needed for Scots Gaelic are generated by pressing the grave accent (or 'backtick') key {{key press|`}}, which is a dead key, then the letter. Thus {{keypress|`|a}} produces à.
* [[acute accent]]s (e.g. á) needed for Irish are generated by pressing the {{key press|[[AltGr key|AltGr]]}} key together with the letter.{{efn|The sequence {{key press|AltGr|[[apostrophe|']]}}{{snd}} acting as a dead key combination{{snd}} followed by the letter, has the same effect. This inconvenient facility is rarely used, being needed only for use with programs that use the combination of {{Key press|AltGr}} and a letter (or {{keypress|Ctrl|Alt}} and letter) for other functions, in which case the {{Key press|AltGr|'}} method must be used to generate acute accents.}} Thus {{keypress|AltGr|a}} produces á; {{keypress|AltGr|Shift|a}} produces Á.
* the [[circumflex]] diacritic needed for Welsh may be added by {{key press|AltGr|6}}, acting as a dead key combination, followed by the letter. Thus {{key press|AltGr|6}} then {{key press|a}} produces â, {{key press|AltGr|6}} then {{key press|w}}  produces the letter ŵ.

Some other languages commonly studied in the UK and Ireland are also supported to some extent:
* [[diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis or umlaut]] (e.g. ä, ë, ö, etc.) is generated by a dead key combination {{key press|AltGr|2}}, then the letter. Thus {{key press|AltGr|2}}{{keypress|a}} produces ä.
* [[tilde]] (e.g. ã, ñ, õ, etc., as used in Spanish and Portuguese) is generated by dead key combination {{key press|AltGr|#}}, then the letter. Thus {{key press|AltGr|#}}{{keypress|a}} produces ã.
* [[cedilla]] (e.g. ç) under c is generated by {{Key press|AltGr|C}}, and the capital letter (Ç) is produced by {{Key press|AltGr|Shift|C}}

The {{key press|AltGr}} and letter method used for acutes and cedillas does not work for applications which assign shortcut menu functions to these key combinations.

These combinations are intended to be [[mnemonic]] and designed to be easy to remember: the circumflex accent (e.g. â) is similar to the free-standing circumflex ([[caret]]) (<code>^</code>), printed above the {{key press|6}} key; the diaeresis/umlaut (e.g. ö) is visually similar to the double-quote (<code>"</code>) above {{key press|2}} on the UK keyboard; the tilde (<code>~</code>) is printed on the same key as the {{key press|#}}.

The UK Extended layout is almost entirely transparent to users familiar with the UK layout. A machine with the extended layout behaves exactly as with the standard UK, except for the rarely used grave accent key. This makes this layout suitable for a machine for shared or public use by a user population in which some use the extended functions.

Despite being created for multilingual users, UK-Extended in Windows does have some gaps — there are many languages that it cannot cope with, including Romanian and Turkish, and all languages with different [[character encoding|character sets]], such as Greek and Russian. It also does not cater for [[thorn (letter)|thorn]] (þ, Þ) in [[Old English]], the ß in German, the œ in French, nor for the å, æ, ø, ð, þ in Nordic languages.