Good hint and all, but the scenario you bring us into, begs the question. He has enough money to buy a MBP, but not enough to get a new keyboard when he spills his beer on his keyboard? (remember folks, don't drink and drive, accidents cause hardware failure)
Use Keyboard Viewer to work around broken keys | 11 comments | Create New Account
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Quick Guide for typing the Down Arrow symbol (↓) To type the Down Arrow Symbol anywhere on your PC or Laptop keyboard (like in Microsoft Word or Excel), simply press down the Alt key and type 25 using the numeric keypad on the right side of your keyboard. For Mac users, to get the downward arrow symbol, first press Control + Command + Spacebar to bring up the Character. Depending on which Mac keyboard you are using there are four (up, down, left, & right) arrow keys on these keyboards. They are highlighted in red. Like our other keyboard shortcuts lists, this one for Word on Mac is great to have at your fingertips. So bookmark the page and the next time you start composing or editing a document in Microsoft Word, you can complete your tasks much quicker.
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Page Up with Fn + Up Arrow The “fn” key is at the lower left of all modern Mac keyboards, and when you combine that with the Up arrow, which is found on the lower right of the keyboard, you will perform the equivalent of a page up. Page Down with Fn + Down Arrow.
Hey, accidents happen! Apple asked for something in the order of $1,200 to fix it which is a silly amount for a key. One can possibly get a keyboard for cheap and replace it at home with some effort (I don't think the MBP keyboard is as easy to swap as older models) but in the meantime.. the keyboard viewer works.
That does not make sense.
I just had my keyboard replaced on my MacBook Pro, and it cost ~ $160: about half for labor and half for the keyboard.
Once you say it was a liquid that spilled on it, they balk and say it needs a level 4 repair which is $1280. I am sure he could try to go to another apple store and hide the liquid spill from them and get the $160 repair.
They told my friend that because the damage involves a liquid spill it will cost more. Perhaps Apple assumes the responsibility of checking the laptop for further liquid damage when they quote that price (what if the key is dead because some other internal connection is messed up for example). Either way, while one ponders all this and compares prices, one can still have the function of the key via Keyboard Viewer. Let's move away from the particular cirumstance, I'm already going to get hell from my friend for mentioning the beer! Focus on the hint. What if you're on a desert island and one of your keys dies? Remember to use your buddy the Keyboard Viewer. It won't revolutionize your Mac experience but it'll keep you going. Thanks for the price quote though, hopefully if he stays quiet on how the key died he can get a cheaper replacement like you did. Shhhh..
You can use a free Hotkey app like Spark (3.0b9) to do this.Open Keyboard Viewer. Open Spark.
In Spark:
Double click the Text/Keyboard Hotkey group to start a new Hotkey. Click the Keystroke tab. Give it a name:Down Arrow Give it a Short cut: in this case crt+shift+up arrow(or what ever you want) Click the Record Button.
In Keyboard Viewer.
Click the: Down Arrow Button.
In Spark
:You will see the arrow icon appear in the Recording. Click:stop Click create.
Your done
Quit Spark Close the Keyboard Viewer.
Try out your HotKey.
--- Ok That Link to Spark does not work.mh http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22675 P.S Anyone know how to use the link: tag ?? Thanks
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mh
I recommend Ukelele to edit the keyboard layout. This way you can remap the non-working key to any other less frequently used key. Keyboard layouts generated with Ukelele can simply be added to ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts
Seems a bit easier than using the keyboard viewer ;-) http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=ukelele
I have also used the Keyboard Viewer to work around an occasional VNC problem: my Mac, accessed remotely, will sometimes become convinced that the option key is being held down. With no way to toggle it through the VNC client I use, the Keyboard Viewer allows me to click on the option key to toggle its state.
A cocoa version to open the Keyboard Viewer: [link:]http://www.encropowered.com/viewers/KeyboardViewer.zip [4KB]
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Steve
Just had an interesting problem where I was keyboardless (I use the Bluetooth keyboard with my iMac, but the batteries were dead and I wasn't in a situation to get new ones). I was able to use the Keyboard Viewer, but wasn't able to connect to the internet, because my campus requires 802.11x authentication and you can't use the Keyboard Viewer in a password field, apparently.
Any suggestions for next time?
When Apple designed the MacBook keyboards, they were probably thinking of which commands we will be using the most when they assigned shortcuts to specific functions, but as with everything else that is being used by millions of people, actual usage does not always align with intended purpose, so many default keys are left unused while some missing keys remain desired. If you have a lot of unused keyboard shortcuts yourself and would like to replace their functions with something that you actually use, below is a guide on how to remap keys on your Mac.
Which Keys Can You Remap?
There are several sets of keys on your Mac keyboard that perform individual functions. You can modify the functions of some keys, but there are some that you cannot. Among the sets of keys that the functions of which you can easily change and remap according to your needs are the function and modifier keys.
The function keys are usually located at the top most part of your keyboard and are either marked with a letter F followed by a number (e.g. F1, F2, F3, etc.) or an icon that signifies what they do (e.g. sun icon for brightness and speaker icon for volume).
The modifier keys, on the other hand, are the sets of keys that you use in combination with another key to perform specific functions like the CMD, CTRL, Caps Lock, Shift, and Option keys.
What Do Function Keys Do?
My external drive is not showing up mac. Traditionally, Function keys were designed to work as shortcuts to system-related commands usually buried under convoluted menus and submenus; however, since they are not frequently used by the average user, Function keys have been increasingly remapped to provide quick access to basic customization tools (like brightness or volume control) although their traditional functions have not been completely removed but simply delegated to the backseat instead.* Free pc software download windows 7.
For example, in the current Mac keyboard design,
*To use the traditional functions of the Function keys, you have to press F1 or F2 together with the Fn key.
**F5 and F6 has no specific function attached to it by default.
What Do Modifier Keys Do?
Like Function keys, modifier keys also work as keyboard shortcuts to frequently used commands. Some examples of commands that your modifier keys are assigned to perform by default are:
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Aside from being used as keyboard shortcuts for system-wide commands, modifier keys can also be used to execute application-specific commands like:
How to Remap Keys on Your Mac
If you are not happy with the default functions of your Function and Modifier keys, you can easily remap the keys on your Mac to assign keyboard shortcuts according to your specific needs and preferences.
To remap the Function keys and change how they work,
Go to the Apple menu
Up Arrow Key Cps
To remap the modifier keys and assigned new key combinations for shortcuts,
This works for system-wide commands; however, you can also remap keys to perform certain functions while particular certain apps.
To do this,
Up Arrow Key Mac Download
Just make sure that the new keyboard shortcut that you created isn’t already assigned to another command. Otherwise, it’s not going to work unless you will change the shortcut that was created first. If you don’t know which keyboard shortcuts have already been assigned to which commands, you can use this detailed list for reference.
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