I have searched high and low for a simple, straightforward diagram of the Mac aluminum keyboard (UK version) along, if possible, with an English explanation of the various functions.

Would anyone have a link to such information? I would be most grateful for the lead.

Go to System Preferences -- Keyboard, and check the box to show the keyboard and character viewer in the menu bar. Then from the menu bar select show keyboard viewer. You can then see, by pressing the modifier keys, what characters you can generate with your keyboard. From language & Text in the System Preferences you can go to the Input sources pane and add various language keyboard arrangements and change them at will, subject to the physical keyboard design.

Hello Talmy,

Huge thank you; I had been scouring Google and Mac help and finding nothing like what I wanted ... and it was there all the time! Believe it or not, I had keyboard and character viewer in the menu bar; I just hadn't thought out what keyboard viewer might actually be.

From this you will gather (correctly) that I have much to learn ... but I'm well past retirement with limited needs and only learn what is necessary to meet those needs. The result is that there are big gaps in my knowledge ... and a few areas in which I am quite competent!

Thank you again.

I figured being "seventyone" you might be retired! Glad to help out.

Hello Talmy,

Long time no contact! Wonder if I could take you back to this exchange we had in June last year.

At the time the problem seemed solved and very grateful I was too, but I recently gave quite a large reshuffle to my notes and … and lost the actual Aluminium keyboard I had saved.

And for some extraordinary reason I can no longer follow your original instructions. Why? Well, System preferences > Keyboard starts the problem. The checkbox for Keyboard and Character viewer will not throw up the Keyboard Viewer into the menu bar. So once again I searched high and low for a diagram of the UK Imac keyboard and simply can't find one.

Please could you come to the rescue again … or for that matter, anyone else who might see this post.

Big 'Thank You'.

On that Keyboard preferences pane, click on "Input Sources" button. On the top of the list for input sources is the Keyboard&Character Viewer. Make sure the box for it is checked (to turn the source on).

I knew you would appear. Thank you. But the problem remains, Talmy.

I click on Systems Prefs > Hardware > Keyboard.
Then check Keyboard and Character viewer box … which does not produce anything in the menu bar. Or, for that matter, remain as 'checked' after I leave the screen.

The only other references on the screen are to Modifier keys and Bluetooth, neither of which are of concern.

I read something in an Apple discussion which suggested this facility is not available in 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. And also a reference to a link from Keyboard to something called 'International' but I can't find that either. I suspect it may relate to other machines than my Imac 2.4.

And I still can't believe that Apple appear to have no need to depict out a legible diagram of the keyboard. I did find a crude drawing of poor resolution under Apple Search, but that's all.

Seems like one long complaint … but the weather is nice here in the UK, I am now 75, though I still use the user name of Seventy One, and Christmas is coming. There has to be something good in the world.

Hope you are well.

Seventy One.

I'm using Lion now but went back to a Snow Leopard system to check on this. It's the same as Lion, but the preference panes are arranged a bit different.

Go to the Language and Text Preference pane.

Select Input Sources

Make sure Keyboard and Character Viewer is checked.

Brilliant, Talmy.

Thank you very much. It is a curious development but it appears as though, having achieved the objective, the system seems to have corrected itself. The character viewer now appears in the bar as it should when going Systems pref > Keyboard . check character viewer box. Most odd; it just refused to do that before I wrote to you.

Just out of interest … would you know how to save the diagram; file does not show a save option.

Thank you again.

You mean the image in the post? Right-click over the image and select "Save Image As.."

No. It was the image of the keyboard itself, I meant. I had already saved your posts.

What I wanted to do was make notes alongside the keyboard picture, like transfer the image to pages. Perhaps a screen shot would do … but where to put it to make the notes against it.

Regards.

Like these? Done with screenshots of the keyboard window.

Yes. That's the idea. My thoughts were to have a saved blank keyboard that I could experiment with and then save each experiment when I am content with it. It's getting a good clear blank keyboard design located on some part of (preferably) pages, so that I can type notes against it.

But don't go to any great trouble, Talmy. I've already taken up loads of your time and we have made much progress. With a little patience I might be able to work something out … I've made much progress since we first met … even got a few points on Apple discussions.