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AltGr (alsoAlt Graph) is amodifier key found oncomputer keyboards. It is primarily used to type characters that are used less frequently in the language that the keyboard is designed for, such as foreigncurrency symbols,typographic marks andaccented letters.[1] The AltGr key is used to access a third and a fourth[a]grapheme for most keys. Most are accented variants of the letters on the keys, but some are additionalsymbols and punctuation marks. Some languages, such asBengali, use this key when the number of letters of their alphabet is too large for a standard keyboard. For example, when the US-Internationalkeyboard mapping is active, theC key can be used to insert four different characters:
Onkeyboard layouts that do not include an AltGr key, such as US keyboards, the key position is labelled as a right-handAlt key. When a relevant keyboard mapping is chosen in the operating system, this key will function separately as AltGr (despite being marked identically to the left-hand Alt key).[2] InmacOS, theOption key has functions similar to the AltGr key.
IBM states thatAltGr is anabbreviation foralternate graphic.[3][4]
A key labelled with some variation of "Alt Graphic" was on many computer keyboards before the Windows international layouts. On early home computers the alternate graphemes were primarilybox-drawing characters.[5]
This likely was the intended purpose of theAlt key on PC keyboards, however software quickly used this as a combination key for shortcuts, requiring a new key for producing additional characters.
Windows interpretsCtrl+Alt asAltGr, to accommodate some compact keyboards like those ofnetbooks which have neither the AltGr key nor a right-hand Alt key. ThusCtrl+Alt+a has the same effect asAltGr+a. Because of this feature, Microsoft advises thatCtrl+Alt not be used as part of any application keyboard shortcut, as it would prevent typing the matchingAltGr character on such keyboards.[6][b]
In most of the keyboard diagrams the symbol one gets when holding down AltGr is in blue in the lower-right of the corner. If different, the symbol for Shift+AltGr is shown in the upper-right.
The Windows version of theBelgian keyboard may only support a subset of these characters. Several of the AltGr combinations are themselvesdead keys, which are followed by another letter to produce an accented version of that letter.
The new Finnish keyboard standard of 2008 (SFS 5966) was designed for easily typing 1) Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian; 2)Nordic minority languages and 3) European Latin letters (based onMES-2, with emphasis on contemporary proper nouns), without needing engravings different from those on existing standard keyboards of Finland and Sweden. AltGr anddead diacritic keys are extensively used, although letters of Finnish and Swedish are mostly provided as normal keys.[7]
OnAZERTY keyboards, AltGr enables the user to type the following characters:
OnGerman keyboards, AltGr enables the user to type the following characters, which are indicated on the keyboard:
Windows 8 introduced the ability of pressingAltGr+⇧ Shift+ß to produceẞ (capital ß). Even though this is usually not indicated on the physical keyboard—potentially due to a lack of space, since the ß-key already has three different levels (ß → "ß",⇧ Shift+ß → "?", and, as shown above,AltGr+ß → "\")—, it can be seen in the WindowsOn-Screen Keyboard by selecting the necessary keys with the German keyboard layout selected. Some newer types of German keyboards offer the assignmentAltGr+H → capital ß.
Some of these key combinations also result in different characters if thepolytonic layout is used.
OnHebrew keyboards, AltGr enables the user to type theHebrew vowels and pronunciation marks.In addition, there are several combinations for special characters:
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Using a Hebrew keyboard, one may write inYiddish as the two languages share many letters. However, Yiddish has some additional digraphs not otherwise found in Hebrew, which are entered via AltGr:
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OnItalian keyboards, AltGr enables the user to type the following characters:
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There is an alternate layout, which differ just in disposition of characters accessible through AltGr and includes the tilde and the curly brackets.
The following letters can be input in theLatvian keyboard layout using AltGr:
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OnMacedonian keyboards, AltGr enables the user to type the following characters:
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The keyboard layouts in theNordic countriesDenmark (DK),Faroe Islands (FO),Finland (FI),Norway (NO) andSweden (SE) as well as inEstonia (EE) are largely similar to each other. Generally the AltGr key can be used to create the following characters:
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Other AltGr combinations are peculiar to just some of the countries:
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TheFinnish multilingual keyboard standard adds many new characters to the traditional layout via the AltGr key, as shown in the image below (the blue characters can be written with the AltGr key; severaldead key diacritics, shown in red, are also available as an AltGr combination).[8][9]
Typewriters inPoland used aQWERTZ layout specifically designed for thePolish language withaccented letters in thePolish alphabet obtainable directly. When personal computers became available worldwide in the 1980s, commercial importing into Poland was not supported by its communist government, so most machines in Poland were brought in by private individuals. Most had US keyboards, and various methods were devised to make available the accented Polish letters. An established method was to configure theright Alt key as an AltGr key and to use it in combination with a Latin base letter to obtain the equivalentprecomposed character (accented form of the letter).
(Because there are two types of "z withdiacritic" (ź andż),AltGr+X is a special case.)
At the time of theFall of communism and opening of commercial import channels this practice was so widespread that it was adopted as the de facto standard. Nowadays nearly all PCs in Poland have standard US keyboards and use the AltGr method to enter Polish diacritics. Thiskeyboard mapping is referred to as thePolish programmers' layout (klawiatura polska programisty) or simplyPolish layout.
Another layout is still used on typewriters, mostly by professional typists. Computer keyboards with this layout are available, though difficult to find, and supported by a number of operating systems; they are known asPolish typists' layout (klawiatura polska maszynistki). Older Polish versions ofMicrosoft Windows used this layout, describing it asPolish layout. On current versions it is referred to asPolish (214).
The keymap with theAltGr key:< Romanian standard
+ the signs mostly pressed withAltGr prints the US keyboard signsRomanian standard>
â ß € r ț y u î o § „ ” ă ș đ f g h j k ł ; z x © v b n m « »
Since release 1903, versions of Windows 10 have the binding:
On South Slavic Latin (used in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia) and on Czech keyboards, the following letters and special characters are created using AltGr:
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South Slaviccyrillic keyboards use a different layout.
OnSwiss keyboards, AltGr in combination with the following keys types the following characters:
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Switzerland has four national Languages (German,French,Italian, andRomansh). The Swiss keyboard layout is therefore designed with compatibility in mind for all four languages. InGerman-speaking andRomansh-speaking Switzerland (as well as theCzech Republic), the Swiss German layout is used, while in the French-speaking and Italian-speaking Switzerland, the Swiss French layout is used. The two layouts only differ on three keys—OEM1,OEM5, and OEM7. On the Swiss German layout, these three keys are labelledèü,éö, andàä, respectively, while on the Swiss French layout, the labels are inverted asüè,öé, andäà; namely, the base layer and theShift⇧ layer are swapped. However, with respect to theAltGr layer, the region-specific layouts are irrelevant.
Swiss German:AltGr+Ä → {
Swiss French:AltGr+À → {
In Turkish keyboard variants the AltGr can be used to display the following characters:
In Ukrainian (enhanced) keyboard, added inWindows Vista, combinationAltGr+U (or as it is written in Cyrillic keyboardsAltGr+Г gives letterґ andҐ.
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InUK andIreland keyboard layouts, only two alternative use symbols are printed on most keyboards, which require the AltGr key to function. These are:
Using the AltGr key onLinux produces many other characters and symbols, e.g. ¹²³€½{[]}@łe¶ŧ←↓→øþæßðđŋħjĸł«»¢“”nµΩŁE®Ŧ¥↑ıØÞƧЪŊĦJ&Ł<>©‘’Nº×÷· (If reconfigured as acompose key, an even larger repertoire is available).
With the UK extended keyboard setting (below),ChromeOS offers alarge repertoire of symbols andprecomposed characters.
For the diacritics used byWelsh (ŵ and ŷ) andScottish Gaelic (à, è, ì, ò and ù), the UK extended keyboard setting is needed. This makes availableAltGr+6 (for circumflex accent) andAltGr+` (for grave accent) as dead keys.
TheUK-Extended keyboard mapping (available with Microsoft Windows, Linux and ChromeOS) allows many characters withdiacritical marks (including those used in other European countries) to be generated by using the AltGr key,dead keys or acompose key, in combination with others.
| ¬◌ ◌¦ | !¡ 1¹ | "½ 2◌ | £⅓ 3³ | $¼ 4€ | %⅜ 5½ | ^⅝ 6◌ | &⅞ 7{ | *™ 8[ | (± 9] | )° 0} | _¿ -\ | +◌ =◌ |
| tab | QΩ q@ | WẂ wẃ | EÉ eé | R® r¶ | TŦ tŧ | YÝ yý | UÚ uú | IÍ ií | OÓ oó | PÞ pþ | {◌ [◌ | }◌ ]◌ |
| ◉ | AÁ aá | S§ sß | DÐ dð | Fª fđ | GŊ gŋ | HĦ hħ | J◌ j◌ | K& kĸ | LŁ lł | :◌ ;◌ | @◌ '◌ | ~◌ #◌ |
| shift | |¦ \| | Z< z« | X> x» | CÇ cç | V‘ v“ | B’ b” | NN nn | Mº mµ | <× ,─ | >÷ .· | ?◌ /◌ |
Notes: Dotted circle (◌) is used here to indicate a dead key, invoked using AltGr. The` (grave accent) key is the only one that acts as a free-standing dead key and thus does not respond as shown on the key-cap. (For a complete list of the characters generated using dead keys, seeQWERTY#ChromeOS.)
AltGr+⇧ Shift+0 (°) is adegree sign;AltGr+⇧ Shift+M (º) is a masculineordinal indicator.AltGr+, is anem-dash; there is no provision foren-dash.
Most keyboards sold in the US do not have an (engraved)AltGr key. However, if there is a right-handAlt key it will act asAltGr if a layout using it is installed (conversely a foreign keyboardAltGr will act like the right-handAlt if the standard US keyboard layout is installed).
Microsoft provides aUS-International keyboard layout that usesAltGr (or right-handAlt orCtrl+Alt) key to produce more characters:
Red characters aredead keys; for exampleä can be entered with"a.
Other operating systems such asLinux andChromeOS follow this layout but increase the repertoire ofglyphs provided.
In theX Window System (Linux, BSD, Unix), AltGr can often be used to produce additional characters with almost every key on the keyboard. Furthermore, with some keys, AltGr will produce adead key; for example on aUK keyboard,semicolon can be used to add anacute accent to a base letter, and leftsquare bracket can be used to add atrema:
This use of dead keys enables one to type a wide variety ofprecomposed characters that combine various diacritics with either uppercase or lowercase letters, achieving a similar effect to theCompose key.
Below are some diagrams and examples of country-specific key maps. For the diagrams, the grey symbols are the standard characters, yellow is with⇧ Shift, red is withAltGr, and blue is with⇧ Shift+AltGr.
The Danish keymap features the following key combinations:
The Italian keymap includes, among other combinations, the following:
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The Polish keymap on X-based systems features changed combination for € sign:
AltGr+U results in ↓ instead.It also introduces several symbols and characters from different languages, including among others:
| Esc | F1 | F2 | F3 | F4 | F5 | F6 | F7 | F8 | F9 | F10 | F11 | F12 | PrtScn/ SysRq | Scroll Lock | Pause/ Break | |||||||||
 | Insert | Home | PgUp | Num Lock | ∕ | ∗ | − | |||||||||||||||||
| Delete | End | PgDn | 7 | 8 | 9 | + | ||||||||||||||||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| ↑ | 1 | 2 | 3 | Enter | ||||||||||||||||||||
| ← | ↓ | → | 0 Ins | . Del | ||||||||||||||||||||