Help with macron shortcuts on mac keyboard

[princevisram]

When typing, if you press and hold the a button, you get a list of letters you can choose from by selecting a number (i.e. pressing and holding a and 8 will give you ā).

I want to add ḍ to my d button (i.e. if i press and hold d i can have an option of selecting ḍ).

OR, I was wondering if it was possible to make an option shortcut from the keyboard (like option+d = ḍ)

Right now I am using "Special Characters" and it's the most annoying thing to have to constantly copy/paste it in.

Is there really no easier way!?

Thanks in advance! New member here

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

I'm running Lion 10.7.3 and this worked for me after a few initial hiccups where for no apparent reason it didn't work ... perseverance won through in the end though, see how you go.

First, enable the U.S. Extended keyboard layout.

To do this:

• launch System Preferences
  
• Click the icon in the System Preferences labelled "Language & Text".
  
• Click the Input Sources tab.
  
• Scroll down through the list of languages in the left window to the layout labelled "U.S. extended".
  
• Click the checkbox next to it. The U.S. Extended layout has now been enabled, in addition to any keyboard layouts which had previously been enabled.
  
• Once the U.S. Extended layout is enabled, it will always remain enabled, but not necessarily active. To quickly switch between the U.S. Extended layout and other keyboard layouts, make sure the "Show input menu in menu bar" checkbox at the bottom of the window is checked. A new icon should appear in your menu bar when this box is checked.
  
• Next, switch to the U.S. extended keyboard layout.
  
• Click the input menu icon (which was enabled in the previous step) in your menu bar.
  
• Select "U.S. Extended" from your list. U.S Extended has now been activated.
  
• Finally, enter the macroned letter from the keyboard.
  
• First type option + x then slowly release them when you see the orange shaded area appear with the dot below and then slowly type d.

Hopefully you won't have the glitches I had trying to get it to work, one second it did then the next it wouldn't ... finally it just works every time now ... ḍ, see!

I hope this is going to work for you.