I never thought I would write three posts about entering characters in Emacs. [[Emacs Characters]] demonstrates the quickest way to insert characters such as è and ä by using the C-x 8 key combination. So, for example: **C-x 8 ' e** prints é **C-x 8 \`e** prints è **C-x 8 ^ e** prints ê **C-x 8 " u** prints ü **C-x 8 / /** prints ÷ **C-x 8 C** prints © copyright [[Emacs Characters 2]] shows how **C-x 8 \[return\]** allows you to type in the description of a character, so **C-x 8 \[return\] LEFT ARROW** gives ← It's time for another way. This post demonstrates **toggle-input-method**. Emacs has a number of input methods, used for entering such things as Arabic characters. You can see the full list using **M-x list-input-methods** Use **C-\\** to enable the input method. The first time you do this you'll be prompted for a method. For the purposes of this post, enter TeX. You can now enter characters using TeX. Here are some examples **\\pir^2 → πr²** **Z\\"urich → Zürich** **Caf\\'e → café** I used **\\rightarrow** to get the → used above, by the way. When you're done using TeX, use **C-\\** to disable the current input method That's three different methods for entering text. Which one is best? For me, it's whichever is the most convenient. If I want to type the acute accent in café I'd probably use **C-x 8 'e**. When I was writing my novel [Dream Paris](http://tonyballantyne.com/fiction/dream-paris/) I used TeX input for typing in the French dialogue. As this is the Emacs workout, why not think of the ways you could type the following in Emacs? > Einstein wrote E=mc² on the table whilst eating a rösti in a café in Zürich. As easy as πr², he thought. If you get stuck **M-x describe-input-method** will give a list of key sequences.