![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/4/9/124912752/742740405.jpg)
I'm using an Apple wired keyboard with Windows 7. I'd like to get the keyboard layout to match the actual keyboard (which AFAIK resembles a US style keyboard). I've tried choosing the 'United states - international' keyboard layout, which seems to almost match, although the quote button isn't - you need to hit it twice for some reason.
Apple’s keyboard layouts look very much like standard Windows keyboards. The biggest difference is in the two keys on either side of the spacebar. On a PC, the keys closest to the spacebar are labeled Alt; the next one over has a Windows logo. On a Mac, the keys closest to the spacebar have an icon (Command) that looks like a four-bladed propeller or electric fan. These Command keys both have the same function. The next one over is the Option key.
The Command key is used in almost all keyboard shortcuts. It’s one of the most important things to know about the Mac.
Another key that may not be familiar to PC users is at the upper-right on Apple keyboards. It’s the eject button for the optical drive (that reads and writes CDs and DVDs). You see the same symbol on the eject button on home audio devices. Continuing to the left on stand-alone keyboards, you find a key with a speaker symbol, which turns the system sound on and off. It’s a mute button, in effect. It is followed by two keys that raise and lower the volume.
![Mac Mac](http://xahlee.info/kbd/ikm/unicomp_model_m_keyboard_25675.jpg)
The keyboards built into Apple laptops and Apple’s wireless keyboard have fewer keys than Apple’s wired stand-alone keyboard. No separate numeric keypad is available. You can use a group of keys on the right side as a keypad by activating the Num Lock function (press Control+F6). On many Mac keyboards, the sound-control keys, screen-brightness, and other controls are on the function keys.
The large key at the right end of the numeral row on PC keyboards is labeled Backspace and deletes the character to the left of the insertion point. Long ago, Apple decided to label this key Delete, because that is what it really does. The problem is that PC keyboards have another, regular-sized Delete key in the group above, or sometimes next to, the arrow keys. This Delete key deletes the character to the right of the insertion point. Apple first omitted this key. Later, when Apple switched to connecting by USB for its stand-alone keyboards, the second delete key came back, labeled del or delete. It also has a standard delete symbol on it which looks like a boxy arrow pointing right with an x in it. The big Delete key doesn’t have a symbol on it, though one exists, and it has the same boxy arrow pointing left. The Apple laptops don’t have a second delete key, but you get the right delete function by holding down the function key (fn) when you press the Delete button.
Since the 1980s, Macintosh computers have included a keyboard layout that facilitates the typing of diacritics and other symbols through the use of the Option key. Windows supplies an “International” layout with a limited range of accents, but using this layout makes the quotation mark and apostrophe keys unusable.
These keyboard layouts fix this situation: one duplicates the standard U.S. layout used on the Mac (also identical to the “Canadian English” keyboard layout), and the other replicates the “U.S. Extended” keyboard layout introduced with Mac OS X. The U.S. Extended provides more accents and places some characters in more logical positions, but the standard Mac layout provides access to a few mathematical symbols that some might find useful. Unlike the Windows layout, these do not change the basic U.S. keyboard.
For their use, see Penn State University or Harvard for the U.S. Extended layout, or Penn State’s page on the standard Mac layout, substituting the AltGr (right Alt) key for the Option key. The Windows On-Screen Keyboard also displays the available combinations.
To install, unzip the downloaded file, and run the “setup.exe” program corresponding to the desired layout; the installer will automatically add the layout to the input menu. Both layouts can be installed on a system simultaneously, and can be removed through the Control Panel.
The source files are in Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator format. Adobe has since created a script for converting keyboard layouts from Mac to Windows format.