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Asked: 2026-05-11T05:52:48+00:00

Is there a way to use an alt / option key as a meta

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Is there a way to use an alt / option key as a meta key but still be able to use it to make some characters which need it?

For example, in my local keyboard layout:

  • @ is alt + 2
  • \ is alt + shift + 7
  • | is alt + 7
  • etc.

So, if I set alt as a meta key, I can’t make those characters anymore. On the other hand, using ‘press esc, release esc, press a key’ to make meta key sequences makes my hands hurt.

Any Emacs users with international keyboards who have solved this, please give any tips you might have! 🙂

Edit:

It appears that I can set alt as a meta key and then add these kind of settings in inputrc: '\e2': '@' This works in the bash shell but it still won’t work with Emacs though, so no good.

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1 Answer

  1. Think about using a full featured Emacs for Mac OS X. I use Carbon Emacs but I believe others (say Aqua Emacs or X11 Emacs) would do the trick.

    If you insist on using Emacs in a terminal you can use the C-x 8 prefix as a compose key. Try C-x 8 C-h to get a list of possibilities.

    See http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS

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