An improved AZERTY, free and open source
Keep the letters and landmarks of the traditional Windows AZERTY. Fix its main limitations.
- Smart Caps Lock
- Period without Shift
- @ without AltGr
- French typography
- Foreign languages
- Programming symbols
Caps Lock + é = É
99% of keystrokes in a French text unchanged · Free and open source (EUPL 1.2) · Windows, macOS, Linux
Hover over or tap a key, or one of the six highlights.
See the keyboard full sizeAZERTY Global is designed and distributed by the Association pour la Modernisation du Clavier Français (AMCF), a French nonprofit association under the loi 1901, founded in Clermont-Ferrand in March 2026 and registered under RNA number W632015664. The project is free, its code is public and its license is open. Learn about the association.
Contribute: the code on GitHub · the Discord server · support the project
Why move away from traditional AZERTY
The AZERTY that Windows installs by default dates from a time when people wrote few accented capitals, no code, and rarely in another language. Three everyday uses are poorly served today.
- Accented capitals take a detour. Typing “État”, “Ça” or “École” takes a detour through numeric codes or a character map. More about the É (in French).
- French typography is not on the French keyboard. French quotation marks, the em dash, nonbreaking spaces and the œ ligature are missing, though a thesis or a formal letter calls for them.
- Programming symbols force you to stretch your hand. Braces, brackets, the vertical bar and the backslash are typed with AltGr on the number row.
The AFNOR layout took a step in the right direction, but 31 characters change key and its programming symbols remain hard to reach. AZERTY Global fixes the real problems while keeping everything that already works.
What changes, key by key
Five changes, plus a series of additions reached with AltGr. On the frequencies of the AFNOR corpus (half formal, half informal text, method), the share of keystrokes affected is 1.01%: in ordinary text, 99% of keystrokes are identical to those of the traditional AZERTY you know.
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1. Smart Caps Lock
ÉÈÀÇ
No more surprise digits. On traditional AZERTY, Caps Lock then é types 2. Here: É È À Ç. Punctuation and digits stay the same.
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2. The period without Shift
.;
No more Shift to end a sentence. The period is a direct key, as on keyboards everywhere else in the world. The semicolon, far less frequent, takes Shift on the same key.
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3. At sign and hash at the top left
@#
No more AltGr + à to type an email address. @ and # are on the former ² key, left of the 1, as on the macOS AZERTY. The old AltGr + à still works.
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4. Programming symbols on the home row
{}[]\|~`^#<>
No more finger stretching. Curly braces, square brackets, the backslash and the vertical bar sit under your fingers with AltGr, easier to reach than on a US QWERTY. AltGr also gives direct access to the tilde, the backtick, the caret, the hash and the angle brackets.
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5. International accents on the ù key
◌́◌̀◌̃ù%
Three dead-key accents take the place of ù: acute for á í ó ú, grave for ì ò, tilde for ã ñ õ. Spanish, Italian and Portuguese type directly. The ù moves to AltGr + U, and the percent sign to Shift + closing parenthesis.
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6. And hundreds of extra characters
This is not a change: it is what traditional AZERTY was missing. French quotation marks, the em dash, the œ and æ ligatures, and dead keys that open Greek, Cyrillic, the phonetic alphabet and scientific symbols.
Step 1 of 6: Smart Caps Lock
- Changed position
- Added character
- Dead key
- Key held down
See the table of characters, row by row
| Character | Traditional AZERTY | AZERTY Global |
|---|---|---|
| Accented capitals É (in French) È (in French) Ç (in French) À (in French) | None in one keystroke | Caps Lock + é è ç à |
| The period | Shift + ; | Direct |
| French quotation marks « » (in French) | Alt + number codes | AltGr + W / X |
| Braces { } (in French) | AltGr + 4 / = | AltGr + D / F, home row |
| At sign @ (in French) | AltGr + 0 | Direct, top left |
Installs so far
“Truly packed with good changes that improve the keyboard day to day. I don’t understand why this isn’t the default AZERTY.”
“This is a much-needed project. I use it for Italian and German on top of French — it has really simplified my work.”
“It barely differs from the classic AZERTY, so adjusting is super fast. But it improves everything else: Smart Caps Lock, foreign-language accents, accessible symbols… 2 days and I had adopted it.”
“Infinitely more satisfying than the classic AZERTY. I can write in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and German — it’s a real game-changer.”
For a school, a company or a public body
AZERTY Global installs without an account or a network dependency, and computers keep their existing AZERTY alongside it: each person switches from one to the other when they decide to.
The AMCF publishes the code under the EUPL 1.2 license, signs the packages intended for organizations, and provides the printable cheat sheet and a getting-started course. The AMCF supports schools and public administrations that deploy AZERTY Global free of charge, starting with a pilot on a few computers (in French).
How a deployment works
In practice, an IT department deploys the signed MSIX kit like any other application in its fleet, with no account or network dependency; the EXE installer, for its part, adds the layout to Windows’ language options. There is no migration to plan and no rollback to prepare: you uninstall AZERTY Global the way you installed it. That is why adoption can go computer by computer, department by department, without a company-wide project.
Published in the Journal officiel des associations of 7 April 2026, the association designs and distributes free keyboard layouts, produces the educational resources that go with them and works to make them known to schools, companies and institutions.
Frequently asked questions
What is a keyboard layout?
The keyboard only reports which key is pressed; it is the layout, on the software side, that decides which character appears. Changing the layout therefore changes what each key produces, without touching the hardware.
How long does it take to get used to it?
A few days of use for the reflexes to settle in. The letters A to Z, the digits and the home row landmarks stay in place; what takes some adjustment is the five changes and the habit of using AltGr for the new characters. The printable cheat sheet in the guide fits on one A4 page.
Do I need to buy a keyboard?
No. AZERTY Global is a software layout: it changes what each key produces, not what is printed on it. Your current keyboard works. Key stickers are possible for the added characters, but not necessary.
Is it compatible with games and shortcuts?
For Z Q S D movement, yes: the letters A to Z stay in place, and Ctrl shortcuts are unchanged. Some games, however, depend on the console key, a shortcut or an anti-cheat system: the compatibility page lists the known cases.
What’s next?
Download Windows, macOS and Linux, free of charge
- Try it online (in French): the tester runs in your browser
- Compare the layouts: AZERTY Global, traditional AZERTY and AFNOR, against bépo
- Quick guide: the five changes and the cheat sheet to print