Friday, September 30, 2011

Using Brazilian keyboard on Mac

I haven't posted anything for a while as I've been in Brazil for nearly a month.
Speaking of Brazil, I've been puzzled for some time about how to get a true Brazilian keyboard on my MacBook.
When I choose Brazilian in System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources, the resulting keyboard is no different from the default US English keyboard.
For this reason, I had been using a Portuguese keyboard layout whenever I needed to type in Brazilian Portuguese which is awkward to say the least.
However, everything is explained and fixed here.
Essentially, for some strange reason, the Mac Brazilian keyboard layout is deliberately nothing more than the usual US keyboard wherein the accents are added using the option key and this table.
However, the linked post offers the winbrazabnt12.keylayout file as one of the options available for download here.
To install this downloaded layout, follow the instructions here.
Basically, you need to open Finder and then Go > Computer > Macintosh HD > Library > Keyboard Layouts.
Next just drag the downloaded layout to the Keyboard Layouts folder and reboot.
Now when you select System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources you should see Win Brazilian ABNT12 as an available option.
When this layout option is selected, the correct Brazilian keyboard will magically appear.
And it works perfectly.
The only thing I don't like about is that the icon in the panel for this keyboard layout option is a rather non-descript monochrome keyboard rather than the Brazilian flag.
Well, I came across this thread which explains how the icon can, in fact, be changed. Haven't yet tried it and it doesn't look very straight-forward.
Edit (5/12/2012). Actually, as pointed out by Ivan in the first comment below, it's indeed very easy to get the Brazilian flag. Thanks, Ivan.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for the links.

    It's actually very easy to install the little flag. You just have to put it in the same folder as you placed the "Brazilian.keylayout" file. Make sure the file for the flag has the same name, but ending in ".icns". So in this case it would be "Brazilian.icns". You might have to log out and back in again.

    You can get the little Brazilian flag from here: http://brazilflag.bob76.imap.cc/

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  2. Thank you very much for this tip. Works perfectly.

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  3. The link doesn't work...!!! =/ Any other link available?

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