From version 2.2.4 Extra Keys Pro is freeware! – exactly like the standard Extra Keys tool for entering accents and other characters.  It was previously only available on payment of a small fee but with this new version the licence code authentication has been completely removed.

So now the choice between standard Extra Keys and Extra Keys Pro is entirely down to the user’s preference.  The Pro edition has more capability, with the options of sending characters in various encoded formats but therefore has more settings that may be unnecessary for many people.  It also requires an additional configuration file for these settings, though this is created automatically when needed. Both programs remain very lightweight, fully portable and have no special system requirements.

This has been waiting in the wings for quite a while, but finally completed and released!  Extra Keys Pro is an extended edition aimed at web writers, computer programmers and possibly technical writers.  It is based on the latest standard edition and looks much the same. However,  it offers the important additional capability of outputting characters in a number of coded formats. These include HTML entity name and code, plus other numeric code formats.

If you only need to type accented letters and other symbols into documents,  then you don’t need this edition – the standard one will be fine.  But if you edit source code files then you will know all about the frequent need to use coded formats for various characters.  Extra Keys Pro could well save you a lot of time and effort. The “Pro” in this case stands for “programmer”.

Considering its intended purpose, we decided to make a small charge for this edition of the product. At only £6 (GBP currency) for a life-time licence, we think users will find it good value.  The standard edition will of course always remain free.

More information on the Extra Keys Pro web page.

A new  version of Extra Keys has been released, which is a major change in one respect as it introduces selectable sets of keys. This enables a big increase in the number of character keys, in fact there are now over 600 unique characters available.

The characters are grouped by alphabets and languages that share characters.  Common accented letters are repeated on several sets,  aiming at reducing the need to switch sets.  For the first time, letters from some non-Latin alphabets are included. This version has Greek, Cyrillic, Georgian and Armenian as well as additional Latin accented letters that are relevant to Eastern European languages such as Polish, Hungarian and Romanian.

The default start-up set remains as Latin for Western European languages, but with some changes.  Letters for Nordic languages are moved to a separate set, while some new accented letters are added to the default set.  Perhaps most notably this now includes the letters needed for Welsh.  It has been pointed out that the original Extra Keys provided accented letters for most Western European languages but omitted Welsh, which is an official language within the UK. Welsh is unusual in treating W and Y as vowels that are sometimes accented. The new version has these characters. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve little knowledge of Welsh, even though my father could speak it!

The original versions concentrated on characters that were part of the ANSI code.  Greatly extending the character range relies entirely on using Unicode.  Most modern applications are Unicode compliant but older programs may have trouble displaying all letters.

It is also very important to use a suitable font, which can be an issue on older Windows versions.  Some applications don’t give a choice of font, but many do, especially word processors and similar programs.  Standard Windows fonts such as Arial and Times New Roman are actually pretty good and have most characters.  If you are running on Windows XP or even Windows 2000 then you may want to install the latest font updates in order to display certain letters. There are additionally some great free fonts that have excellent Unicode support, for example the DejaVu font family that comes with OpenOffice/LibreOffice.

Due to  all the additional character data the program file for this version is quite a lot bigger, though no heavy-weight at just 970Kb.  The new version is still self-contained and fully portable.  If you don’t need all the new letters, perhaps you only use French or Spanish, then the previous version will be fine (and smaller). It remains available for download and the actual program logic is the same as the new version, only the character range is different.

As always,  for more information and downloads  see  the Extra Keys web page.