EurKEY - The European Keyboard Layout is based on the American keyboard layout. It is well suited for translators and programmers who are used to the US keyboard layout. It has has a very convenient access to European letters and accents.

This note explains how to install the latest version 1.3 on Windows. For Linux instructions please refer to: Install the international US keyboard layout with the European EurKEY extension on Linux.

EurKEY - The European Keyboard Layout, version 1.3

The figure above shows the keyboard layout version 1.3.

The layout involves almost no deadkeys at all. As most letters can be reached with [AltGr] key combinations, so it is strongly recommended remapping the [Caps] key as a second [AltGr].

The latest version 1.3 comes with an important detail for German users: It gives direct access to the capital grapheme "Eszett" ẞ (not to be confused with the lowercase Eszett ß). Most distribution offer version 1.2 as „eu“ keyboard layout.

Here the changlog for the

Version 1.3
-----------
1. Added ✓ and ✗ (replacing © and №)
2. Added capital ß (ẞ)
3. Made ¬ a dead key with these bindings:
  s                   §
  1                   №
  2,3,4,5,6           ½,⅓,¼,⅔,¾
  c,p,r,t,T           ©,℗,®,™,℠
  h,j,k,l,u,i,n,m,=   ←,↓,↑,→,↖,↗,↙,↘,↔
  H,J,K,L,U,I,N,M,+   ⇐,⇓,⇑,⇒,⇖,⇗,⇙,⇘,⇔

Instructions for Windows

  1. Download the lastest Windows version: EurKEY - The European Keyboard Layout

  2. Unpack the archive eurkey13-beta.zip.

  3. Lauch the appropriate package installer. For most system double click on eurkey_amd64.msi.

The EurKEY keyboard layout makes extensive use of the [AltGr] key as modifier key. To improve ergonomics I recommend remapping the [CapsLock] key to act as a second [AltGr] key. The following steps are tested on Window 10:

  1. Open the file editor Notepad and copy the following content:

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,38,e0,3a,00,00,00,00,0

  2. Save the file as:

    • File name: tp-note.reg

    • Save as type: All files

    • Encoding: UTF-16 LE

  3. Double-click on tp-note.reg and confirm several times.

  4. Reboot Window.

  5. Test the new keyboard configuration.

    Type something, for example:

    • [AltGr]+[Shift]+[S] enters the capital grapheme "Eszett" ß (not to be confused with the lowercase Eszett: ß): ẞ

    • [AltGr]+[5] enters €.

    • [AltGr]+[T] results in þ.

    • [AltGr]+[A] results in ä.

    • [AltGr]+[Shfit]+[Q] results in Æ.

    • [CapsLock]+[U] results in ü.

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