Beware of the bilingual Canadian keyboard layout 
If you’re looking to buy a computer in Canada, or more importantly a laptop, you will probably look at things like brand, screen size, battery life, hard drive space, operating system, CPU speed, RAM, and other even more technical aspects. However, don’t forget to look at the keyboard layout.
Many computers in Canada come with a bilingual keyboard layout, which is different than a US-style, “English-only” keyboard. If you or the person you’re buying the computer for is used to the US-style keyboard, certain properties might be difficult to adjust to. Here are two of the most obviously differences in those keyboard layouts:
Tall and narrow bilingual Enter key and the short and fat US Enter key:
Narrow bilingual left Shift key and the wider US left Shift key:
If the bilingual keyboard layout (or US layout, to be fair) really bugs you regarding a computer you already own, you can search around for a replacement keyboard with the layout that you want. You’ve got to be careful when replacing laptop keyboards, but it’s certainly a possibility.
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November 26th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
JaneB says:
Also, for people who want a bilingual keyboard the cheap and easy way, just get the usual US keyboard and (in Windows) go to the control panel and set the language to Canadian English and the keyboard to the Canadian Multilingual Standard. Forget about this changing the physical keyboard thing, just let the software remap a few keys! No numerical codes for accents, no weird enter key, just a few remapped keys on the right hand side. If you don't touch-type, you can buy little decals and stick them on the keys….
November 28th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Claire says:
The number of keyboard layouts a bilingual Canadian has to remember in order to type in both languages is nuts. I have a laptop that has a US keyboard and a Canadian multilingual keyboard that I plug in when at my desk. When I set to French, a lot of the characters are set to different keys and for some reason the keyboard at work has yet another layout in French. Drives me a little crazy, especially as a couple of mystery characters just don't seem to exist in some layouts but, still, maybe it'll help prevent Alzheimer's one day.
January 6th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
Cam says:
My bilingual keyboard looks worse. The right shift key is half the original size and is shared with another | and \ key. I bought mine online so I didn't know what the keyboard would be like. Because of this layout, I'll probably be buying my laptops from the States from now on, or at least going in-store to make sure I'm accustomed to the keyboards.
February 23rd, 2010 at 11:26 am
Kevin J. Woolley says:
The only problem I've found with switching keyboard layouts on a standard US keyboard is that you lose a couple of characters — I can't remember which ones off the top of my head (backslash?), but they were deal-breakers for me, as I needed them for programming. The extra key to the left of Z is where those live on a bilingual/UK keyboard.
I still haven't made up my mind how to fully deal with it, but I'm making do with knowing the finger dance to switch keyboard layouts quickly.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Justin says:
I want to know who decided we should all adopt this multilingual keyboard layout and what does the extra backslash keys have to do with French anyway (see diagram above)? When did this keyboard layout take over? I’ve lived in Manitoba all my life and I don’t know a single person who speaks French and all I can find are laptops with these asinine multilingual keyboards. I spell colour with a ‘u’ and measure almost everything in metric but these keyboards are bu|| sh*t!