Romanian keyboard layout

In the article we present, we will delve into the fascinating world of Romanian keyboard layout and explore its importance in today's society. Romanian keyboard layout is a topic that has captured the attention of experts and enthusiasts alike, generating interesting and passionate debates. Over the years, Romanian keyboard layout has proven its influence on different aspects of everyday life, from technology to popular culture. In this article, we will delve into the background of Romanian keyboard layout, its evolution over time, and its impact on the modern world. In addition, we will analyze the various perspectives and opinions about Romanian keyboard layout, with the aim of offering a comprehensive and objective vision of this very relevant topic.

Main articles: Romanian alphabet and Romanian language
See also: QWERTZ and Keyboard layout
Romanian letters à and  on the keyboard of an Apple MacBook Pro
Romanian SR 13392:2004 ("primary") keyboard layout
The original MS Windows' Romanian keyboard. It actually had the cedilla characters and lacked the Euro sign, and in some versions, the dead keys were not implemented, as upon they were typed, they were actually simple diacritic characters.

The current Romanian National Standard SR 13392:2004 establishes two layouts for Romanian keyboards: a "primary" one and a "secondary" one.

The "primary" layout is intended for more traditional users that learned long ago how to type with older, Microsoft-style implementations of the Romanian keyboard. The "secondary" layout is mainly used by programmers and it does not contradict the physical arrangement of keys on a US-style keyboard. The "secondary" arrangement is used as the default one by the majority of Linux distributions.

There are four Romanian-specific characters that are incorrectly implemented in all Microsoft Windows versions before Vista:

  • U+0218 Ș LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH COMMA BELOW – incorrectly implemented as U+015E Ş LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH CEDILLA
  • U+0219 ș LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH COMMA BELOW – incorrectly implemented as U+015F ş LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH CEDILLA
  • U+021A Ț LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH COMMA BELOW – incorrectly implemented as U+0162 Ţ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH CEDILLA
  • U+021B ț LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH COMMA BELOW – incorrectly implemented as U+0163 ţ LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH CEDILLA

Since Romanian hardware keyboards are not widely available, Cristian Secară has created a driver that allows the Romanian characters to be generated with a US-style keyboard, in all Windows versions previous to Vista. It uses the right AltGr key modifier to generate the characters.

Legacy QWERTZ Windows keyboard

Romanian (Legacy) Windows keyboard

Before Windows Vista, this keyboard layout was the default for Romanian. From Vista onwards, its name is "Romanian (Legacy) Keyboard".

This legacy layout uses the wrong cedilla-based diacritics instead of the correct commabelow-based ones: Ș and Ț. Beware that in some fonts t-cedilla and T-cedilla are rendered using the commabellow accent, e.g. in some Adobe fonts.

References

  1. ^ Cristian Secară. "RO Keyboard" (in Romanian). Retrieved 19 January 2013.
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