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The Extra Characters tool panel

This is a small Windows software application that enables simple input of international and other special characters. It has always been part of Plant Base, but is now also available as a separate stand-alone freeware utility. This software input panel can be used with almost any application, such as e-mail software, word processing, spreadsheets and so on.

It is easy to insert accented letters and symbols that do not appear on your keyboard, into most documents.

Using the mouse, each letter is normally typed directly into the selected application, at the current cursor position. The character is also copied to the Clipboard. In some situations, typing directly into another program is not allowed but the character can still be inserted by simply using Paste.

Clicking the button will refresh the available application list. Some may not accept input, but Extra Characters has been successfully used with many programs.

All the characters are from the ANSI Latin-1 character set, suitable for use with Western European and US fonts. Extended Unicode characters for other regions are not provided by this version, but might be in a future development.

Some PC firewalls may complain when it is first run, as it sends data to other programs. It is safe to allow this - only the standard Microsoft SendKeys method is used to generate keyboard strokes. Extra Characters does not interfere with target application in any way other than sending keystrokes, exactly as you would from the keyboard.

The program is already included in the Plant Base installation. The downloads below are for stand-alone set-up. It is free and unrestricted. There is no registration, time limits, adverts or nags. It should run on all versions of Windows from 95 onwards. It is written in VB6 and therefore requires the normal MS run-time libraries, which you may already have - they are included in XP and Vista (but use the first, larger download if you are not sure).

Instructions:

• Click a file link above (or right-click and Save Target as...).
• Save the file to any convienient location on your hard disk.
• Locate the downloaded file with Windows Explorer and run it by double-clicking.
• Follow the on-screen instructions.