User Guides

Many languages have more than 26 characters in their alphabets and/or use letters with accent marks, and the Lomak keyboard is designed to create these international characters in several ways.

Lomak users can therefore write documents in many European and South American languages.

For full details of the international layouts and key positions, read elsewhere in this User Guide.

The Lomak can be set to its US-International layout and used with any Windows computer that is set for the US-International keyboard. With this configuration, many characters can be created using Lomak's Shift-Confirm switch to select from an extended range of keys stacked on certain buttons.

Alternatively, you can use the AltGr key (right Alt) in combination with certain standard keys.

You can also create accented characters using the dead keys on the Control bar.

If you have a Lomak without any labelled extended key positions, you can affix labels from the sheet of international character stickers that comes with your Lomak.

This section applies to the US-International layout only.

The international language characters are created by a two-step process.

• Step 1 is to click one of the Shift keys and confirm: the Shift key will turn off and the AltGr button on the Control bar will become illuminated, indicating that the next key to be selected will be an international character “stacked” on one of the primary keys.
• Step 2 is to click the desired key and Confirm.

Note that when the AltGr button is illuminated, only keys with international assignments will respond to the pointer—all other keys will be unresponsive.

In this method, the characters available to you are listed in the US-International Keys (pdf) page. See key maps 1 - 4 on pages 1 and 2.

To create an uppercase international character, click a Shift prior to character selection in Step 2. Note that not all international characters have an uppercase.

The Shift-Confirm status can be cancelled by doing a second Shift-Confirm, or by deactivating AltGr (pause on it briefly). The AltGr will turn off, indicating that the next key will be a primary character.

International characters can alternatively be created using the AltGr key (the right hand Alt) if tyour computer is set up for using the US International keyboard. This method works with modern operating systems as well as older systems such as Windows 98, and works with the Lomak keyboard set to its Standard or International layout.

In this method you need to click AltGr before selecting a key and confirming. The characters available to you are listed in the US-International Keys (pdf) page. See key maps 5 - 8 on pages 2 and 3.

Shifted characters are created by clicking AltGr, Shift, then the key, and confirm. Accented characters can be created using the dead key method described later on this page.

The Lomak can be set to any of its plug & play international layouts and used directly with Windows systems that are already set for the corresponding language keyboard. Within such configurations, the international characters of the given language can be created using Lomak's Shift-Confirm technique.

You can also create accented characters using the dead keys on the Control bar.

Lomak keyboards for international markets may be labelled with the positions of the international characters commonly used in that market. The positions of other international characters for this market (or any other country) can be affixed from the sheet of international character stickers that comes with your Lomak.

This section applies to the plug & play layouts only. For the US-International layout, see the relevant section above.

The international language characters are created by a two-step process.

• Step 1 is to click one of the Shift keys and confirm: the Shift key will turn off and one of the blue Layout buttons on the Control bar will become illuminated, indicating that the next key to be selected will be an international character “stacked” on one of the primary keys.
• Step 2 is to click the desired key and Confirm.

Note that the blue Layout button is only an indicator, showing that only keys with international assignments will respond to the pointer—all other keys will be unresponsive.

To create an uppercase international character, click a Shift prior to character selection in Step 2. Note that not all international characters have an uppercase, and that some "uppercase" characters are not relevant.

The Shift-Confirm status can be cancelled by doing a second Shift-Confirm. The blue Layout button will turn off, indicating that the next key will be a primary character.

The designation “dead keys” refers to keys that generally, depending on context, produce no output on the first activation but may modify the next character (if allowed) by adding an accent mark to it. In the Lomak, these keys will mostly be found on the left or right circles.

Therefore, if you do click such a key and are puzzled why there is no corresponding character produced in your document, the reason could well lie in the key being a dead key.

Note that a dead key followed by a Space will create the dead key character by itself, whereas a dead key repeated a second time will create two dead key characters in succession.

Lomak international layouts are designed to let you use dead keys very easily, as the accent marks are assigned to the number buttons on the Control bar, as shown below.

Cedilla	Tilde	Umlaut	Acute	Circumflex	Grave

All you need do is:

• pause on the accent mark key until the button illuminates
• select the character to be modified
• confirm.

Note that some accent marks may not be valid for a given international layout, and that Windows only allows certain characters to be modified.

French and Belgian French

For the cedilla (on Option 0) you will always get ç no matter which key you select afterwards. This is because the standard French and Belgian French keyboards do not provide a dead key for the cedilla.

French layout only

For the acute accent (on Option 3) you will always create é regardless of which character you select afterwards. This is because the standard French keyboard does not provide a dead key for the acute accent.