One thing I never see mentioned, probably because it’s not very common, is that on some languages the Mac has a completely different position for symbol keys! This makes using a Mac keyboard on Windows (or vice-versa) extremely annoying (Linux tends to support the Mac layout as well so it’s fine).

For instance, in Portuguese, the Mac keyboard [1] has the + key two keys to the right of 0, and you use shift to input *. Meanwhile, on Windows [2], this key is one row below next to P, with the place it is on Mac occupied by «/». Most of the AltGr keys are also in different spots (particularly { and }), which makes this a major pain if you consistently switch between Windows and Mac.

Frankly I prefer the Mac layout, in part due to the Cmd/Ctrl split, but also because I believe it assigns more meaningful symbols to keys (I have literally never used «/», the internet will tell you that’s how quotations are done in Portuguese but everyone, books included, uses “/”).

I never saw any explanation as to why these differ. Does anyone know of any other languages where this happens? It doesn’t seem to be very common!

[1]: https://store.storeimages.cdn-apple.com/1/as-images.apple.co... [2]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/KB_Portu...

Another difference I remembered, this time a Microsoft-only idiocy: core Windows and Microsoft (Office) apps TRANSLATE shortcuts! Ctrl+A (“All”) becomes Ctrl+T (“Tudo”) in Notepad if the computer is in Portuguese. Ctrl+S also stops saving and is replaced by Ctrl+G (“Guardar”).

I can see why Microsoft thought this was a good idea, but the problem is that ONLY Microsoft apps do this, so you have two sets of shortcuts to remember. I don’t know a single person who likes this.