Chapter 13. Using special characters in GNOME In GNOME, you can use the Compose Key to type special characters from different languages and symbol sets, including those not available on your keyboard. You can enter and view special characters from different languages and symbol sets, making it easy to work with diverse character sets in GNOME. To input these special characters, you can define one of the existing keys on your keyboard as a Compose Key. Once enabled, the Compose Key allows you to type special characters and symbols by pressing multiple keys in a specific sequence. 13.1. Enabling the Compose key for an individual user with the Tweaks application To enable the Compose key for an individual user by Tweaks application follow these steps. Prerequisites The Tweaks application is installed on your system. Procedure Open the Tweaks application. Select Keyboard & Mouse in the side bar. Enable Compose Key . Choose which key from the listed keys triggers the Compose functionality. 13.2. Enabling the Compose Key for another user You can enable the Compose Key for another user with the gsettings utility. Prerequisites Administrative access. Procedure Allow all clients to connect to the X server: Run the following command to set the Compose Key: Replace <username> with the username of the user for whom you want to enable the Compose Key. Replace <compose_key> with the key you want to use as the Compose Key. You can use the ralt option to designate the right Alt key as the Compose Key. To see other Compose Key options that you can use to set up a Compose Key on your keyboard, use: Resets the access control: Verification To check the Compose Key settings for another user, use: Replace <username> with the username of the user for whom you want to check the Compose Key setting. 13.3. Enabling the Compose key for all users To enable the Compose key for all users, follow these steps. Procedure Open the /etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-input-sources file as the root user. Enter the following content in the file: Replace selected-key with the key that triggers Compose. For example, use ralt to set the right Alt key. To override the user's Compose settings and prevent the user from changing them, create the /etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks/input-sources file and enter the following: Update the system databases for the changes to take effect: Users must log out and back in again before the system-wide settings take effect. Additional resources See the xkeyboard-config(7) man page for the names of other keys. 13.4. Compose Key sequences for special characters The table showcases Compose Key sequences used to input special characters with diacritics or accents in GNOME. Each row displays a Compose Key sequence alongside its corresponding result Table 13.1. Compose Key sequences for special characters Compose Key Sequence Result Compose + ' + letter Letter with acute accent (e, a, n) Compose + ` + letter Letter with grave accent (e, u, o) Compose + " + letter Letter with umlaut or diaeresis (e, o, u) Compose + - + letter Letter with macron (a, e, o) Compose + / + letter Letter with stroke or diacritic (o, l, o) Compose + = + letter Letter with double acute accent (o, u, a) Compose + . + letter Letter with dot above (a, c, d) Compose + , + letter Letter with cedilla (c, s, n) Compose + ^ + letter Letter with circumflex accent (a, e, i) Compose + ~ + letter Letter with tilde accent (a, n, o)

Commands:
yum install gnome-tweaks
xhost +
su - <username> -c "gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options \"['compose:<compose_key>']\""
grep compose /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst
xhost -
su - <username> -c "gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options"
Enable the Compose key xkb-options=['compose: selected-key ']
Lock the list of enabled XKB options /org/gnome/desktop/input-sources/xkb-options
dconf update