The problem:
My girlfriend bought her new laptop from Microsoft Store Canada, and it has an ANSI (US) keyboard layout, but she’s writing her Masters thesis and she needs to use a keyboard language that has an ISO layout in Windows (Canadian French, so still QWERTY, not AZERTY).
This means that, aside from having the non-alphanumeric symbols no longer match their respective keys (which could easily be fixed with stickers, I guess), she needs uses a virtual keyboard to type “«”, “»” and ° because the ANSI laptop keyboard is 87-key while the ISO layout is 88-key. So there’s a whole key that’s missing.
This issue is partly my fault, as I presumed that even though the laptop’s specs listed “Keyboard: English”, it would be ISO English instead of ANSI English, as we were shopping on canadian sites only.
Most laptops sold in Canada have an ISO layout due to the Canadian Multilingual Standard being the mandatory keyboard for all government offices and the standard for several major businesses. Moreover, stores can only sell laptops with ISO keyboards in Québec, due to the necessity of typing in French just as well as in English.
The specs did not specify the actual layout of the keyboard other than the language, and I didn’t pay much attention to keyboard on the item’s pictures because even manufacturers’ websites commonly re-use US product images for their international variants.
The laptop in question:
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msca/en_CA/pdp/Ordinateur-portatif-ASUS-ZenBook-UX305CA-UHM1-édition-Signature/productID.327234300
Solutions considered:
- The keyboard probably can’t be physically swapped to accomodate ISO keys, since the entire top part of the aluminum unibody would need to be replaced because of Asus’ otherwise nice chiclet style.
- I have no idea if the Microsoft Store would agree to exchange the laptop for an ISO version (if they even have one), or if we could appeal to the fact that they only specify the language of the laptop and not its keyboard layout (even though the pictures do show an ANSI keyboard)
- I don’t even know if it is legal for them to ship ANSI English laptops in Québec without specifying that its layout doesn’t properly fit the Multilingual standard setting.
- I still haven’t found keyboard stickers for Canadian French that would be appropriate for ANSI keys. But even then, I have no idea how to properly remap the keys to make up for the missing key.
Now, I turn to you guys and gals, as I have yet to find an appropriate solution.
Pretty much everything I found on the net is about adapting european French AZERTY ISO laptops to use US ANSI English instead of the other way around, and we also want to keep QWERTY instead of that pants-on-head AZERTY our european cousins seem to think was a good idea…