Which layout for typing French?

A transition you can measure

Compared with the traditional AZERTY, AZERTY Global moves only 13.8% of its characters, which affects about 1% of real-world keystrokes (character-frequency analysis on a French reference corpus). If you already type on AZERTY, the switch takes hours, not weeks.

Coming from a US layout is a bigger step — you are relearning the letter positions of the keyboard France actually uses. But it is a one-time investment that pays off on every French computer you will ever touch.

Why AZERTY Global rather than the US International QWERTY?

The US International layout is the go-to answer for English speakers who need é and ñ. It works — until you write French for real.

On US International, every apostrophe costs an extra keystroke: ' is a dead key, so don't and it's require ' + space, dozens of times a day. French pushes it further: no œ ligature at all (cœur, sœur, œuvre), and the French quotation marks « » hide behind shortcuts almost nobody knows.

Then there is the hardware: keyboards in France are physically AZERTY — your office computer, shared machines, your French laptop. Running US International means the printed keycaps lie to you on every one of them.

AZERTY Global keeps the AZERTY base France uses and fixes its real flaws: accented capitals with Caps Lock, programming symbols on the home row, a direct period — plus dead-key accents for Spanish, German, Portuguese, Polish and 200+ other languages.