Alphasmart Neo for writing Spanish

March 15, 2010 7:00 AM

I am thinking about getting an Alphasmart Neo, but I cannot find any information about it's capabilities for writing Spanish (things like 'ñ' and accented vowels). Does anyone use any current Alphasmart product for writing in Spanish?
posted by Guywood Threepbrush to writing & language (6 answers total)

They actually make spanish versions of the keyboard. But if you want an English version that will type spanish characters, I'm not sure. Call their tech support and ask them
[phone]
posted by luvmywife at 7:25 AM on March 15, 2010

Hopefully someone who own one will chime in shortly, but the lack of any information on the manufacturer website combined with this Flickr thread points to no. A Google search for "alphasmart unicode support" turned-up very little. On the other hand, they do have Latin American sales contacts, so you might want to check with them.
posted by paulg at 7:26 AM on March 15, 2010

This knowledge base article seems to imply that there's some sort of applet that will allow you to send special characters and mentions Spanish explicitly, but it's not clear whether it only applies to the software on the computer you link it to or the software on the device itself.
posted by Kosh at 7:27 AM on March 15, 2010

The English keyboard will make spanish characters. You can view how from the user's manual here under "Keyboard Commands and Special Characters" section
posted by luvmywife at 8:44 AM on March 15, 2010

I guess Neo is not for me, then. I haven't been able to locate any Alphasmart product with an actual spanish keyboard, and I guess writing novel-length with those shortcuts would lead to madness (quicker, that is).
Thank you all for your answers.
posted by Guywood Threepbrush at 11:35 AM on March 15, 2010

"Customers can purchase AlphaSmart models with customized language and keyboards for France, Finland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and all Spanish-speaking countries." (link)

I also found this link which seems to be promoting the spanish one, but I don't see a buy link anywhere on it. They do have a "contact us" link though. I can't imagine it would be too hard to locate a reseller (or do a bulk order of 1?) by calling/emailing them, I can't tell from the picture but I assume the keyboard is customized in that version.

That's all I could find, but it might be a bit more than you had before. Good luck finding it!
posted by R a c h e l at 5:43 PM on March 15, 2010