compose(5)

     NAME
          compose - International key input

     SYNOPSIS
          <compose-key-sequence> <key-sequence>

     DESCRIPTION
          compose is a mechanism for international key input on an
          international keyboard. There are 3 methods of achieving
          compose on an international keyboard.


          <Shift> <AltGr> <two key sequence>
               For example pressing <Shift> <AltGr> "a:" produces the
               adiaeresis. The <Shift> denotes either of the Shift
               keys. If <AltGr> is not available on the keyboard, any
               of the keys on the keyboard can be assigned as <AltGr>
               by using xmodmap(1)

                    xmodmap -e "keysym Alt_R = Mode_switch Multi_key"

               sets the right Alt key to be <AltGr>.  Note that the
               <Shift> has to be pressed before depressing <AltGr> but
               it is not necessary to hold them while entering the
               <two key sequence>.  See composetable(5) for a detail
               list of valid <two key sequence>.

          dead_key
               Some of the diacritical (accent) keys on the national
               keyboards do not generate a character directly but
               combine with the following key to produce an accented
               character; such non-spacing diacritical keys are also
               called "dead" keys.  For keyboards that do not contain
               dead keys, any of the keys on the keyboard can be
               assigned as a dead_key by using xmodmap(1).  For
               example, to assign key F1 to be the diaeresis key

                    xmodmap -e "keysym F1 = dead_diaeresis"

               <F1> "a" will now produce adiaeresis. You can use a
               dead key to generate legal characters that are not on
               the keyboard, but you cannot combine a diacritical mark
               and some symbol to create a new character.  For
               example, <dead_diaeresis> "$" yields two characters (a
               diaresis followed by a dollar sign) instead of a dollar
               sign with two dots (which is not a valid character).

     FILES
          /usr/lib/X11/input/*.xkm           - The keyboard tables.

     SEE ALSO
          xmodmap(1), composetable(5)