How do I easily type Greek letters on Windows 10?

Question

I have only ever used English language settings for keyboards and Operating Systems. As I am starting to learn Greek, I would like to be able to easily type in it. What is the easiest way to enable this on Windows 10? Which language pack do I select?

I got as far as Settings → Time & Language → Language → English → Options:

I can then click "Add a keyboard", and I see three options - "Greek Latin", "Greek (220) Latin", and "Greek (319) Latin". I have chosen "Greek Latin" for now.

Now how do I actually use this keyboard to type Greek characters?

And finally, how do I add accents?

Answer 1

What you did added a Greek keyboard (a keyboard used in Greece) for writing Latin characters. To write in Greek characters, you should click "Add a preferred language" instead.

After the Greek language is installed, you should add the "Greek Polytonic" keyboard (assuming you're learning Ancient Greek). The keyboard allows for acute, grave and circumflex accents, with breathing marks and iota subscript. You can find the commands for typing in this document. However, for some reason the document is missing the commands for the diaeresis (for use with ι and υ):

:i = ϊ
`i = ΐ

This is the default keyboard for Windows. There are other polytonic Greek keyboards with different commands, such as this one which is also available for download.

Answer 2

If you don't want to have to change keyboards and just want to be able to type Greek characters occasionally, you might find it more useful to install WinCompose, a free app that turns the AltGr key into a Compose key.

That means I can type AltGr * S and I get Σ, for example.

It adds a whole load of other codes (like AltGr a - → ā or AltGr a e → æ and a bunch of emoji) and it's customisable, but the whole Greek alphabet is available through AltGr * and sensible mnemonics. There's a bit more documentation on their Github page: https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose

Answer 3

I have just released a beta for a program (Study Maestro) that will do Ancient Greek characters quite easily, including combinations of accents, it does substitute a tilde for the circumflex, because the creators of UNICODE seem to have left that out! Accents work on buttons or keyboard shortcuts, you type in the letter first, then either click the button or use the keyboard shortcut. You have to have a specific version of Greek installed, that being "Greek (Greece)" which shows up on your taskbar as "ΕΛ". You can see some of the results on this page https://www.archeuslore.com/studymaestro/search/greeksp.html This beta is free until I decide it is ready to go, just released 10-16-2020, there are no limitations on the beta. I expect it will be in beta at the very least until the end of October, possibly later. Any buttons that you do not understand, hover the mouse over and get a tool tip to tell you what it does.