May 2015- Please note that we have not yet had time to make systematic updates in this sticky to reflect the new forum software. The instructions, explanations, tips, and tricks presented in the following posts were written for the old software. While many of them will still work, others won't be quite as described, and still others may no longer exist. We thank you in advance for your patience through the forum software transition. In the interim, you may find the following thread to be useful:
vBulletin (old forum) --> Xenforo (new forum): Glossary

1. Quick links
2. QUOTING 1 - quoting posts and other sources, trimming quotes, quoting from inside a quote, how quote tags work
3. QUOTING 2 - multiquote feature, splitting quotes into several parts
4. QUOTING 3 - how to quote considerately
5. SEARCH 0 - Basics
6. SEARCH 1 - General search tips
7. SEARCH 2 - Dictionary - standard functions
8. SEARCH 3 - Dictionary - forum search
9. SEARCH 4 - Forum
10. SEARCH 5 - Wikipedia
11. SEARCH 6 - Google
12. SEARCH 7 - General Google search tips
13. SEARCH 8 - Forum-specific Google tips
14. Advanced forum features
15. How to type accents and other "weird" symbols
16. Changing the editor width and height
17. Firefox users: Spellchecking, typing and formatting resources
18. A complete survey of subscription options

Other Threads of interest:
The history of WordReference Forums
member banning process

 

QUOTING 1 - quoting posts and other sources, trimming quotes, quoting from inside a quote, how quote tags work


Important!
There are two quote tags
- the opening tag [quote], which may include the name of the poster as well as the post number (for example: [QUOTE="panjandrum, post: 15464593, member: 17010"])
- the closing tag [/quote].
Notice that they are different. If you, for whatever reason, fix tags manually, make sure the closing tag contains the / symbol. Otherwise the software will not read your input the way you want.

Important!
The Preview Post button (or Vorschau, Anteprima messaggio, Vista preliminar, Prévisualisation du message) is your friend. When you are working on your message and are not sure that you placed quote tags correctly, click on it and you will see what would happen if you clicked on Submit now. If, after submitting your post, you see that a quote tag is missing/redundant, hit the Edit button and fix it.

Basic quoting - other posts

Find the post you want to quote and click the REPLY or +QUOTE button. If you want to quote it in full, you don't need to do anything else. Just type your comment under it and submit it. You can also select the text that you'd like to quote with your mouse. A little grey pop-up window that says "+ Quote | Reply" will appear below the selected text . If you click "Reply", your quoted text will be copied in the reply box.


When writing, you will see:

[quote="panjandrum, post: 2513609"]I don't think the two expressions are absolutely identical.

I hear "in the face of" with a tone of defiance.
He laughed in the face of danger. Danger is personified.

I hear "in face of" more neutrally = facing.
He demonstrated extreme bravery in face of danger.

I suspect that is a personal impression.[/quote]
I respectfully disagree: I believe they are identical because etc.
​

When you submit the work, you will see:

I respectfully disagree: I believe they are identical because etc.

​

Basic quoting - other sources

Let's say you want to quote another website, and to make your post easy to read, you would like the quotation to appear in the blue field. Go to the other website, select the text with your mouse and copy it (Ctrl+C or right-click and choose Copy or use another method of your choice), return to the forum reply window and click the INSERT icon (to the right of the smileys) and then the QUOTE icon. Quote tags [quote][/quote] will appear. Click in the middle (between ] and [) and paste the text. Indicate the source and submit.

In the reply window, you will see:

[quote] weltschmerz "pessimism about life," 1875, from Ger. Weltschmerz, coined 1810 by Jean Paul Richter, from Welt "world" + Schmerz "pain." Popularized in Ger. by Heine.
Source: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=weltschmerz&searchmode=none
[/quote]
​

Click on Submit:

Trimming quotes

Remember that if you want a chunk of text to appear in a blue field, nicely set apart from your own post, it has to be wrapped in quote tags, [quote] at the beginning and [/quote] at the end.

If you trim the text you quote, make sure you do not delete the [/quote] part. Otherwise you'll end up with this visually unappealing mess:

[quote="panjandrum, post: 2513609"]

I don't think the two expressions are absolutely identical.

I hear "in the face of" with a tone of defiance.
He laughed in the face of danger. Danger is personified.
I disagree with your interpretation of the sentence.

​

If you do it correctly, you will see
- in the editor window:

[quote="panjandrum, post: 2513609"]

I don't think the two expressions are absolutely identical.

I hear "in the face of" with a tone of defiance.
He laughed in the face of danger. Danger is personified.
[/quote]
I disagree with your interpretation of the sentence.
​

- after you submit your post (or click on Preview):

I disagree with your interpretation of the sentence.
​

Quoting from inside a quote

outside the quote.
​

If you quote a post like this, just the part "outside the quote" will appear in your post. If you want to quote the "inside the quote" part as well (perhaps to comment on corrections performed by the poster you quote), you will have to select it with your mouse, click the INSERT icon (to the right of the smileys) then the QUOTE icon and paste the text inside the [quote][/quote] tags (you can type them manually if you want). Remember that some formatting may not survive the transfer (colors, bold, italics, underline should but strike-through probably not).

How quote tags work (skip this if you are not interested)

Let's analyze this: [quote="panjandrum, post: 2513609"]
The format is: [quote="NAME, post: NUMBER"]

The "=NAME" part causes "Originally posted by "NAME" to appear at the beginning of the quotation ("Originalmente inviato da NAME" in the Italian version, "Originalmente publicado por NAME" in the Spanish version, "Zitat von NAME" in the German version, "Posté par NAME" in the French version). See the first blue field in this post.

The "#NUMBER" is a link to a specific post. It will take you to the quoted post. The number is a unique number of the post.
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Multiquote feature (quoting several posts)

If you want to address points by several posters at once, it is advisable to do it in the same post. Click the +QUOTE button (at the far right of the bottom of every post) in each of the post you want to quote. When you are done a new "INSERT QUOTES" button will appear at the bottom of the reply box. If you click it the quoted text will be copied in the reply box. Then you can edit it and click REPLY to post it.

Example - in the reply window:

[quote="panjandrum, post: 2513609"]I don't think the two expressions are absolutely identical.

I hear "in the face of" with a tone of defiance.
He laughed in the face of danger. Danger is personified.

I hear "in face of" more neutrally = facing.
He demonstrated extreme bravery in face of danger.

I suspect that is a personal impression.[/quote]
My comment.
[quote="cuchuflete, post: 2513850"]This may be item number 13479484763 in our list of BE/AE distinctions. I have never heard or read the expression without the article.[/quote]
My comment.
​

After submitting the post:

My comment.

My comment.
​

Splitting quotes into several parts (quoting the same post)

Sometimes you want to comment on several statements separately. Example:

My comment, part 1.

My comment, part 2.

My comment, part 3.
​

How to do it (more approaches possible, of course):
1. Select a post and then click REPLY. The quoted text will appear in the reply window and the whole post will be wrapped in [quote][/quote].
(1a - optional. Divide the post into paragraphs; one paragraph-one quote.)
2. Delete the [/quote] tag (the closing one) right away.
3. Click where the first quoted part should end. Click INSERT then QUOTE . [quote] and [/quote] will appear.
4. Delete the former, [quote]. This way, you will associate [/quote] with the opening tag at the very beginning of the post.
5. Write your comment after the [/quote] tag.
6. Now identify the second part of the quote. Select it with your mouse.
7. Click INSERT then QUOTE. The selected text will now be inside [quote][/quote].
8. Write your comment after it.
9. If needed, repeat points 5-8 for the third, fourth etc. part of your quote.

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Quote judiciously. Do not make people scroll more than necessary. If you wish to comment on a small part of a long post, trim the quote. To indicate parts you left out, you can use (...) or [...].

Do this:

NOT this:

If possible, write corrections inside (use colors) and comments/explanations under the quote. Examples:

*1 As è da togliere, perché, secondo me, dà un significato totalmente diverso rispetto alla frase italiana.

*2 secondo me "is" è corretto, non lo è "was" perché la persona che scrive si riferisce al presente (mezzanotte), non alla passata telefonata.

*3 "to bother" è un termine troppo gentile. Rivoltare, o disgustare io non lo tradurrei mai così.

*4 you è la parola giusta, perchè l'interlocutore sta parlando ad una sola persona, e cioè il presidente.

Spero che sia d'aiuto.

***

The meaning is different:
Ci siamo sentiti per X = we talked about X, better we arranged for X.

The only reason for choosing the verb sentirsi is that the two guys haven't met each other, but they have phoned, texted or e-mailed each other.
​

If you want to address several points, create several quotes:

Nein, die Wörter sind synonym.

Das ist wahrscheinlich eine falsche Deduktion Deinerseits. Massenware trägt vielleicht häufiger den edler klingenden Namen Kartoffelpürree -- das ist aber nur Marketing.

​

If you do the following, no confusion will arise but you will make life harder for people who might want to quote your comments:

Except for and , avoid putting smilies inside other people's posts - readers cannot know who wrote them unless they scroll up and check. Example:

Original post:

Wait for natives but I think you are right.
​

Your post:

​

And NOT:

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SEARCH 0 - basics


1. If possible, start with the dictionary. Entries contain a lot of compound forms that can help you find an answer. Make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the page. After the entry, you will find a list of threads that contain the word(s) you searched for.

2. Use the Search box. Click on the Search link at the top of the page.

For more tips, click here.
​

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SEARCH 1 - General search tips

General search tips

Natural language vs keywords
Natural language searches (Can "get" be an auxiliary verb in the passive voice?) are not always the best. Search by keywords (get passive).

Grammar-dependent words
If you search for an expression consisting of several words, try to avoid grammar-dependent words (gender, declensions, conjugations, tenses). If you need to translate "make up one's mind", "make up my mind" will obviously be as useful for you but you will not find it if you include "one's" in your search string.

Other forms of the same word
If possible, try several forms of the word you are interested in. Example: make, making, makes, made. Or: apple, apples. Google will do this for you, the dictionary and the forum will not. In Google, the default setting is to search for other forms as well. To override it, write a + symbol in front of the word (no space).
Example: writes history book (contains also "write", "writers" etc.)
Example: +writes history book

Syntax and case sensitivity
Pay attention to the syntax of search commands. Heavy-handed and heavy -handed are totally different search strings. Cases do not matter with one exception: The operator OR is only recognized as such if it is capitalized.

Diacritics
Some symbols, in particular ´ ` ~, matter just a bit (results differ by a comparatively negligible number, probably due to rounding; the order of results is usually slightly different), others, like ¨, can matter a lot in Google. For the most part, WordReference dictionary and forum searches are not sensitive to diacritics (e.g., vergüenza and verguenza return identical dictionary results).
Vocalized and non-vocalized queries in Arabic and Hebrew yield the same results in Google (again, some minor differences in number and order of results are to be expected; compare "تَأْمِينٌ ضِدَّ البَطَالَة" and "تأمين ضدّ البطالة" to see the difference). Omitting symbols like shadda, however, considerably affects the number of results - "تأمين ضد البطالة" for example. In the forum search engine, vocalized and non-vocalized words are unfortunately not compatible at all, meaning that a search for a vocalized version of a word will not find non-vocalized versions and vice versa.
For Slavic languages, you can omit diacritics (s ~ ś ~ š, a ~ á, o ~ ô ~ ó) and substitute similar letters (l ~ ł, but not đ ~ d) in Google. In forum search, those substitutions only work for vowels and some consonants. Words containing some letters will not be identified at all. Use Google.

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Dictionary - standard functions

Very intuitive.

Search tips:
* You can search for compound forms.

Example: capital
Example: capital stock
​

* If the entry you have found contains word you don't understand, just click on that word and the dictionary will automatically take you to the definition or translation. You do not have to type anything.
* If you get a very long page of results with many examples and compound forms and cannot find what you need quickly, use the Ctrl+F (find) function of your browser (an improvement for Firefox users - find as you type) and search within that page.
* Like all dictionaries, this one has entries for the core forms of words only (verbs in the infinitive, nouns in the singular, adjectives in the masculine singular). However, it recognizes derived forms as well and automatically redirect you to the core form.
* Notice that you can click on the conjugator in the Spanish, French and Italian dictionaries.
* If you want to explore the usage of the word you have found, click on the "in context" link and you will get redirected to the Google News or Google Groups results. You can also click "images" to be taken to the corresponding Google image search.
* Links to translations into other languages (if available) appear at both the top and the bottom of the entry.

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Dictionary - forum search

Apart from the usual dictionary functions, you can use the WR dictionaries to search for threads.

Look up a word and scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says Forum discussions with the word(s) 'your word' in the title.

Pros and cons:
+ very fast
+ updated almost instantaneously
- searches only thread titles
- some forums are not affiliated with any dictionary

The affiliations:

SP-EN/EN-SP - General Vocabulary / Vocabulario General, Grammar/Gramática
Español monolingüe - Sólo Español
Sinónimos y antónimos - Sólo Español
FR-EN/EN-FR - French-English, French and English Grammar, Français Seulement
FR-ES/ES-FR - Español-Français
IT-EN/EN-IT - Italian-English, Solo Italiano
English definition - English Only
PT-ES/ES-PT - Português-Español
DE-EN/EN-DE - German
RU-EN/EN-RU - Russian

​

Other forums unfortunately cannot be searched through the dictionary. See Google search tips to learn how to replicate this functionality.

Search tips:
* You can search for several words at once. Example: conditional past.
* The dictionary ignores logical operators and most punctuation.
* Use quotation marks to search exact phrases. Example: "at the table".
* You may use the asterisk (*) as wildcard at the end of a word. Example: greed* searches thread titles containing either of the following: greed, greedy, greedily, etc.

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Forum

The Advanced search

Pros :
+ many search possibilities (search by sub-forum, posts by a particular member etc.)
+ updated instantly
+ wildcards possible

Search tips:
* by default, all search terms are included
* type - in front of a word you want to exclude (and do not leave a space)
* for phrase search, put quotation marks around the search terms
* in the Advanced search , you can

• search either entire posts or titles only (preferably use the dictionary for the latter);
• search for posts by a particular person or for threads started by a particular person;
• limit your search to a sub-forum or several sub-forum (hold the Ctrl key to select several) - do not do it if you do not expect many results;
• have displayed threads or posts;
• order the results either by date, number of replies or by relevance

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Wikipedia

For specialized terminology, you can frequently use Wiki's links to other language versions. Example: You need to know "chemical bonds" in Portuguese. Look it up in the English Wikipedia, scroll down to other language versions and let yourself be redirected to Ligação química.

• ‪Norsk (nynorsk)‬
• Polski
• Português <==
• Română
• Русский

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Google

Pros and cons:
+ very fast
+ many search possibilities
- updated with a delay of several minutes/hours/days
- some amusing oddities

Go to your preferred Google page and type the search string in the form word site:forum.wordreference.com.

If you search pages in a particular language only (e.g. www.google.it for Italian), you will approximate the subforum search, albeit imperfectly.
Example: subordinate site:forum.wordreference.com - Italian pages.
To limit search to a specific language, use either the respective variant of Google or advanced search options.​

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General Google search tips

Advanced Search
If you do not want to write out search commands (explained below), you can use the drop-down menus in Google's Advanced Search page to obtain the same results.

Contextual searching
As a language learner, you typically need to see words in context. The general Google page (google.com) or variants thereof (google.es etc.) often place high manufacturers, vendors and other websites that do not help you see how words are used. Learn to use Google News (various language versions available), Google Blog Search, Google Groups, Book Search, Scholar.
You can search government (word site:gov) or university (word site:edu) websites only.
If you want to limit search to a particular website, formulate your query this way: word site:forum.wordreference.com.

Time-saving tip: If you use the site:forum.wordreference.com trick often, you might want to bookmark one of your searches, for example saudade site:forum.wordreference.com, and simply replace "saudade" by another expression instead of typing site:forum.wordreference.com over and over.
​

Operator "and"
This one is assumed by default. You can search for peanut jelly and +peanut +jelly with the same results. Unless you use quotation marks (see later) or write + in front of it, the word and will be ignored as one of the so-called stop words (common short words that slow down the search without improving the results).

Operator "or"
OR searches for page with either of two terms or with both. It can be replaced by the | symbol, so that supply OR demand and supply | demand yield the same results (notice that OR has to be upper-case). You can use OR/| for chains of words. If you combine OR with other operator (including the implicit AND), use nesting, i.e. parentheses.

Operator "without"
To exclude a word from the search, write - in front of it and do not leave a space. For example corporate -governance finds all websites that speak about "corporate" but do not mention "governance". You can exclude several words.

Phrase search
To find websites with two or more specific words next to each other in a predetermined order, wrap the search string in quotation marks or hyphenate them.
Example: "wreak havoc"; example: wreak-havoc. (The hyphenated variant also searches for wreakhavoc, so the numbers of hits differ a bit.)
Notice that you can combine those with isolated words.
Example: wreak-havoc earthquake. In this case, "earthquake" will be somewhere in the same document but not necessarily in the immediate neighborhood of "wreak havoc".

Wildcards
You can use wildcards to replace one or several complete words. As of now, you cannot replace parts of words with wildcards.
* usually finds strings with one word in place of the asterisk.
Example: "have never * china"
** usually finds strings with two words in place of the asterisks.
Example: "have never ** china"
*** usually finds strings with three and more words in place of the asterisks.
Example: "have never *** china"
Four and more asterisks in a row do not always yield convincing results.
You can combine several asterisks in a search string.
Example: "is not as * as * brother"
Naturally, it does not make sense to put asterisks at the beginning and at the end of search strings.

Compound searches
You can combine the "", OR, * and - operators.
Example: "have never seen my (mother OR father) cry"
Example: "have never seen my (mother OR father) (cry OR laugh)"
Example: "have never seen * (mother OR father) (cry OR smile)"

Definitions
Use the "define" command. Google will search well-ranked glossaries and similar resources.
Example: define:subjunctive mood
Example: define:call option

Word stemming
Google has a stemming technology. If you look for happy, you will also get results for happiness. Unfortunately, this cannot be combined with restrictions like site:forum.wordreference.com. Also notice that this feature is not available for all languages.

Synonyms and related words
The operator ~ in front of a word searches for synonyms and related words, too.
Example: ~etymology (also finds "origin of words", "word origin" etc.)
For English Only so far.

Anchor words
Listen to what other people say. If I link to the WR forums this way: the best language forum, the clickable words the, best, language, forum are called "anchor words". The command inanchor helps you find the most frequently linked to (and anchored) websites. You can combine it with quotation marks or use the allinanchor command (the latter.
Example: inanchor:"russian grammar"
Example: allinanchor:excellent spanish grammar ~reference - the ~reference part also finds websites linked to as "guide", "tutorial", "help", "review" and so on.

Some other operators are explained here.

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Forum-specific Google tips

How to search a specific forum
Unfortunately, it is not very efficient to put the name of the language in the search string. There's a good work-around, however. Simply include something that is unique to the forum in question. See the header of each thread - it contains the path to the forum.


Put this in quotation marks and Google will search that forum only.
Example: freedom "semitic languages arabic" site:forum.wordreference.com
Notice:
* Google ignores the > sign, so you can omit it as well.
* This way, you are likely to find an archive thread. To read the "real" one, simply click on View Full Version.

Search thread titles
Google's command "intitle" will help you replace the forum's "search title" function because forum thread titles are parts of webpage titles.


Let's check whether there's a thread about "already" in the Arabic forum.
Example: already site:forum.wordreference.com - woefully hopeless
Example: already arabic site:forum.wordreference.com - still abslutely hopeless
Example: intitle:already arabic site:forum.wordreference.com - very tractable. If it still gave you too many results, you could replace "Arabic" by something that is unique to the Arabic forum.
Example : intitle:already "Semitic Languages > Arabic" site:forum.wordreference.com - bull's-eye.
Notice: The intitle command considers just the following word. To search for more words you suspect might be in the title, combine a string of several intitle commands or use allintitle; intitle:splendid intitle:isolation = allintitle:splendid isolation
Post by a specific forero
Forum search can find posts by a specific forero but if you only remember that word Google cannot find posts by a specific person but unlike forum search, it finds threads where a forero posted although he/she did not specifically mention the keyword(s) (in forum search, the keyword(s) must be present in the post(s) by the particular forero. So, if you are want to find a thread you vaguely remember, try improving your search by including a name of a forero who contributed there.

Search within a timerange
This is not known for working well. In the forum context, it is also highly problematic because you may remember the thread you want to find was started more than two years ago but you have no way of knowing when it was last updated (which does not matter) and when Google last indexed it (this is important). For example at the time of this writing, this thread was last active in October 2006 and yet, it was last indexed in May 2005. Forum threads are re-indexed often.
Anyway, you might find it useful when you search for recent threads. Google timerange works on the principle of Julian days, the number of days that have elapsed since January 1, 4713 BC (more details, convertor). To limit search to threads indexed between May 25th and May 27th 2007, add timerange:2454246-2454248.
Another option is the "date" operator. Google will search only within the specified number of months backwards. Again, you cannot know when Google last indexed the thread you want to find. To use this option, add date: 3 (or another whole number, and do not forget to leave a space after the colon).

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How to type accents and other "weird" symbols


Multiple options:

1. Use the clickable accented characters, currently available on most WordReference forums.

When you post here on WR, you will see an omega button [ ] at the top of the reply window. To insert an accented letter in your forum post, click the omega and select the character you need from the pull-down menu. The list of available characters depends on the forum where you are posting. This feature is available as long as you left the box checked next to "Use the rich text to create and edit messages" in your preferences. Note: clickable accented characters are not available for private messages.
​

2. Install the appropriate keyboard. It is very fast and easy. You will not lose the keyboard you are used to. You will be able to toggle between several keyboards.

How to do it?
Windows - a detailed guide (works for all languages)
Mac - details here (and if you have a better site, please suggest it!)​

3. Use accent codes. Special key sequences on your existing keyboard will allow you to type accented letters.

The exact details depend on your operating system.
Windows - different combinations of Alt and a number code will produce a special characters.

Links for specific languages are at the end of this post but you can find all numeric combinations here. Not very practical if you need to memorize many combinations, and problematic for many other reasons (Firefox users, scroll down).
​

Mac OS X 10.7 and later - very easy! Press and hold the key for the un-accented letter. A list of accented forms and related special characters will appear on your screen.

To insert one, click it, use the arrow keys in combination with Enter, or press the key corresponding to the small digit below the accented letter. This method works for all major languages written with a Latin-based alphabet.
​

Mac OS older releases - use the Option key codes. Information here.​

4. Use a multilingual keyboard like the one from Lexilogos. The interface is in French but it is extremely intuitive and user-friendly. No installation is required.

Another popular multilingual keyboard is TypeIt (not as many languages).​

5. Use a text editor or utility program on your computer.

• Do you have to work with many different encodings? Do you want to work with a different keyboard without having to memorize it? Or are you simply tired of toggling? Download SC Unipad, an excellent tool (available for free for viewers and occasional users) that lets you type in many languages (without having to install any keyboards). You can either type directly on your own keyboard or use your mouse to type with a soft on-screen keyboard. You can also create your own keyboard layouts. The software has many functions for advanced users but complete beginners will appreciate it, too.
• Microsoft has a free Keyboard Layout Creator. Details here.
• Utility programs like AllChars (opensource freeware) allow you to use certain key combinations to create accents and other special characters (e.g. press and release CTRL, then type ', then type e to produce é). You can also custom-configure the utility to convert abbreviations into longer text strings (e.g., you could set /wr to convert automatically to "WordReference"). Thanks, Calande!
• Mac OS - use the character palette (information here and here)

6. For IPA symbols, use this on-screen IPA keyboard.

You may need to set your font to Lucida Sans Unicode when you copy the symbols into a text box here on WordReference.
​

***

Firefox users:
Attempts to use Alt combinations will often result in interferences with access keys*. That is, instead of producing a letter, you end up on another page.

• Make sure that your numeric keyboard is activated. Notebook users will have to use the Fn key to activate the integrated numeric keyboard.
• If you never use access keys, you can disable them to avoid problems with Alt combinations. How to do it: Type about:config in your address bar. Scroll down and find "ui.key.generalAccessKey." Double-click it and set the value to 0.

* Access keys - shortcuts that help you navigate the forum more quickly. Examples:
Alt + 1 - forum homepage
Alt + 2 - new posts
Alt + 4 - search
Alt + 5 - FAQ
Alt + x - open the advanced reply window
Alt + s - submit a reply / send a PM / save your settings (depending on where you are)
Alt + arrows - back and forward button​

***

Links to character input and formatting instructions available in individual subforums:
Arabic
Chinese
French-English - includes hexadecimal codes for Linux
German
Hebrew
Italian
Japanese
Russian & Slavic languages
Spanish

<Edited to reflect Xenforo software update>

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[h=2]Firefox users: Spellchecking, typing and formatting resources[/h]
I am often asked about these things in PM's, so I decided to compile an informative post for everyone's reference. The items listed here are Firefox extensions (that should work for Thunderbird and Seamonkey, too) that will make posting easier and more pleasant for you.

If you have questions or comments, please send me a PM.

1. Spell checkers

Q: Where can I use them?
A: In most editable fields, such as this excellent editor, and the reply windows in this forum.

Q: I need a spell checker for more than one language. Is that possible?
A: Yes. Download as many as you need. You can easily toggle among them.

Q: How do I know that I made a mistake?
A: Misspelled words are underlined (as in MS Word).

Q: Will I be offered suggestions for wrong words?
A: Yes. Right-click on the underlined word.

Available languages:
Arabic
Bulgarian
Catalan
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English (Australia)
English (Canada)
English (UK)
English (USA)
Estonian
Finnish
French
Gaelic
German (Austria, neue Rechtschreibung)
German (Germany, neue Rechtschreibung)
German (Switzerland)
Hebrew
Hungarian
Icelandic
Italian
Lithuanian
Latvian
Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk)
Polish
Portuguese (Brazil)
Portuguese (Portugal)
Romanian
Russian
Slovenian
Spanish (Argentina)
Spanish (Spain)
Swedish
Ukrainian
Ukrainian (large edition)
Upper Sorbian

Multilingual:
English-Greek (good for bilingual texts)

2. Typing - accented letters and non-Latin scripts

abcTajpu - Type accented letters, either by using a context menu or define your own keyboard shortcuts.

Zombie Key - Type accented letters using predefined shortcuts.

ToCyrillic or Russkey - Type spasibo, select it, right click, choose ToCyrillic and спасибо appears. Type Россия, select it, right click, choose Translit and Rossiya appears. Also transliterates texts of any length in non-editable fields in both directions.

Any key - Type words in phonetic Russian, Ukrainian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Hindi Davangari, Hebrew, Mongolian and transliterate them (like ToCyrillic and Russkey).

Indic Input Extension or Indic IME - Input in Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarathi, Gurmukhi, Oriya, Malayalam, Nepali, Kannada and Hindi.

TamilKey - Several popular Tamil keyboards.

3. Formatting

Copy Plain Text - Have you ever copied something in a post and been annoyed that the text formatting tags (bold, font size, link, colors etc.) appeared with it? This extension (available through the right mouse menu for Windows users) will solve your problem: The copied text will appear in the default forum format - Verdana, size 2, no formatting.

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A complete survey of subscription options (and how to unsubscribe)

1. Subscribe to a whole forum
   On the main page of the specific language forum you want to subscribe to, go to Forum tools and select Subscribe to this forum. You will then receive daily emails with a summary of that day's posts. Very few people use this. Not recommended for big forums.
   
   
2. Subscriptions to threads.
   a. Automatic subscription (to threads you have posted in)
   - subscription with instant e-mail notification (forum default),
   - subscription with daily e-mail notification,
   - subscription with weekly e-mail notification,
   - subscription without notification,
   - no subscription.
   If you use one of the first four options, a tick appears at the far right of the box with the thread's title in the list of threads, making it easy for you to identify threads you have participated in.
   
   If you alter the type of subscription you have, the change will not have a retroactive effect. Changes to your previous subscriptions have to be made manually in your User Control Panel (list of subscribed threads). To select all threads on a particular page, check the empty box at the far right of the row of headings. Scroll down and move all threads to the new subscription folder. Repeat for all pages.
   
   b. Individual subscription
   You can subscribe to a thread you have not participated in. Go to the thread, click on Thread tools (at the top of the page), and choose Subscribe to this thread from the dropdown menu. Cancel an existing subscription in the same way.
   
   c. Customization on a case-by-case basis
   When you are composing a post and want to override your usual subscription type, click on the Advanced mode and scroll down. In Additional options, you will find all the possibilities mentioned above under 2a. Your choice will apply only to that one thread.

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