Weird characters appear when pressing command-A,C,V

Question

I'm not using Mac keyboard however it did work properly before. I changed the Command key to Ctrl. Until today, using this Ctrl key yield extremely odd characters. When pressing

Ctrl-A yields å
Ctrl-V yields √
Ctrl-C yields ç

And I have no idea where these characters come from? So how could I fix this issue? Can anyone please help? Thanks.

EDIT
Here is my screenshot

screenshot of keyboard preferences

please delete me · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-11T07:00:43.337

13

It looks like you have accidentally configured your control key to be your alt key. Case in point: when I press alt+a, I get å. alt+v returns √, and alt+c gives us ç. Go into your settings and check again. They are located in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys. Note: alt is also option.

Edit: I cannot duplicate this phenomena (see comments on this answer), so I will guess that the non-Apple keyboard is messing up the process somehow.

edited Jan 11 '12 at 07:00

answered Jan 11 '12 at 06:40

please delete me

1,508

Thanks a lot. However no matter what I change, it will never become the command key again since I turn on the Keyboard Viewer and I saw that every time I assign a different key to command, it becomes option :(. Really don't know what to do now? Any suggestion? – roxrook Jan 11 '12 at 06:54
@Chan That is odd. Let me play around with mine and see if I can duplicate what's going on. – please delete me Jan 11 '12 at 06:55
Many thanks for your help ;). I really appreciate that. – roxrook Jan 11 '12 at 06:59
@Chan No problem! Couldn't reproduce, so I updated my answer. – please delete me Jan 11 '12 at 07:01
Thanks anyway. I guess I have to buy a Mac keyboard then. But it's totally weird since I set command to no action before. The only thing I did before that was reboot the computer from the command line since it was freeze. Other that, I couldn't think of any reason that would cause this problem. – roxrook Jan 11 '12 at 07:07

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 14 '20 at 19:22

12

I've just run into that issue myself for my new Keychron K4 keyboard. It turned out that the switch was pointing to Windows mode, rather than OSx.

answered Feb 14 '20 at 19:22

RanmaGo

121

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 17 '15 at 23:21

1

If the option key is the one with the Windows logo on it, make sure you have the game switch (the switch with the little joystick on it) set to off. I think off is left.

With the game switch on, the Windows key is disabled (to prevent accidental Windows key presses from minimizing your game and sending you back to the Windows desktop).

edited Jan 17 '15 at 23:21

Jens Erat

2,026

answered Jan 17 '15 at 21:49

Martin

11

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 22 '20 at 12:17

1

I use a Macbook Pro with an old PC keyboard and ran into this issue today, commandc gives "ç".

After reading the posts here, I assigned

Option to "No Action" and
Command to Command

like this:

and now copy/paste works again.

This article has useful information: Command+C (copy) with the left command key does not work

edited Jun 22 '20 at 12:17

jaume

15,010

answered Jun 22 '20 at 11:36

Andreas

111

1

If Option key is set to Option instead of No Action, does that cause a problem? – Tom Gewecke Jun 22 '20 at 14:39

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 07 '22 at 22:05

1

I got the same issue with my keyboard as below:

Ctrl-A yields å

Ctrl-V yields √

Ctrl-C yields ç

My problem was my keyboard settings.

I am using Air75 with both physically setting for MaxOS and Win. The keyboard has a physical switch that allows you to select which system you are on. Flipping the switch to Windows will revert the command and options keys. I would suggest double check if you have the switch in the Windows setting.

I hope this helps, and best of luck.

answered Aug 07 '22 at 22:05

xChaos

11

Worked for me. I have Logitech K480 and the problem was that the OS switch was accidentally switched to Windows/Androin/Chrome mode. The moment I switched it to MacOS mode, it worked just fine. Thanks. – Sunanda Oct 31 '23 at 16:48

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Dec 13 '22 at 14:47

1

On Logitech K860 I solved it by: Long press fn+O

If that doesn’t work, then try fn+P

not case sensitive
long press (~ 5 seconds)

edited Dec 13 '22 at 14:47

agarza

2,274

answered Dec 12 '22 at 22:24

E A

111

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 05 '19 at 23:58

Old question but today I ran into the same issue. What caused it, no idea. It was either a) my 1 year old daughter mashing keys or b) when trying to setup a steam controller on mac.

The problem is your option key and command key are swapped. Remapping the keys in the Settings > Keyboard > Modifier Keys doesn't work.

Karabiner-Elements works to remap the keys to each other. Thus left option -> left command, left command -> left option. Same for the right side. Karabiner is a free, broadly used piece of software.

Here's what you'll want to do:

score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Jan 03 '22 at 20:43

0

Some keyboards support different keyboard configurations. I found pressing fn + O solved this problem on Mac. See your specific keyboard manual to switch it to Mac layout.

edited Jan 03 '22 at 20:43

agarza

2,274

answered Jan 03 '22 at 19:12

ekov

1

score 0 · Answer 9 · edited Feb 15 '23 at 16:46

0

Go to System Preference -> Keyboard -> (Keyboard shortcuts) -> Modifier keys -> Restore setting for your keyboard.

Then just press Fn O for 3 seconds. Your keyboard setting will be setup to Mac defaults instead of Windows.

edited Feb 15 '23 at 16:46

Allan

101,432

answered Feb 15 '23 at 15:37

Setareh Foroozan

1

Weird characters appear when pressing command-A,C,V

9 Answers9