David Hornsby
Independent IT consultant in St Jean de Fos (34150)
tel: 04 67 29 12 38   mobile: 06 88 69 55 51 [from UK 0033 467 291238 / 0033 688 695551]
e-mail: contact me
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TIPS FOR EX-PATS IN FRANCE
Typing with an English keyboard
You can type all the accents you need for French and other European languages without buying a French keyboard. This will be useful if you use the computer in both languages and are used to the English layout.
Any accented or non-English characters can be typed by holding down the ALT key (bottom row, left side) then a 4-digit number on the right side numbers keypad. Ensure that Num Lock is on. You can print a list of the number codes from this page.
French spelling checking in MS Word
*** NB You may need your installation CD for MS Office to make this work ***
In Word, click 'Tools', 'Language'.
A 'Language' box appears.
Note the version of English that your computer is using.
Scroll through the language list until you find 'French(France)' and select it. Click the button 'Default...'
Answer the confirmation question by clicking the 'Yes' button.
From now on Word will treat all documents you create as French until you reset the default Lanuage to English in the original version.

Some computer-related words translated ...
Ko, Go, Mo. 'o' is 'octet' in French which is the term they use for 'byte'. Therefore these in English are KB, MB, GB
Numérique = digital
Saisir = enter, as in enter information in a form
Mis à jour = update
Saufgarder = save
Supprimer = delete
ADSL = broadband. ADSL is actually English anyway
Basse a donnés = database
Fiche = file
Dossier = folder
Tableur = spreadsheet
Logiciel = program
Clavier = keyboard (French keyboards are laid out a little differently to UK)
Souris = mouse
Télécharger = download
Haute débit = high speed