New default Polish keyboard layout for X11 is intended to maximize number of useful characters accessible from keyboard, while still keeping compatibility with current layout, where possible.
New layout allows writing in majority of common languages that use Latin script: Albanian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Javanese, Kashubian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian (with cedillas, not commas), Scottish, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Turkmen, Uzbek, Welsh.
This includes all European Union languages, except Bulgarian and Greek, which use non-Latin scripts.
| Key | Previous character | New character | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ` ~ | ¬ | Not sign – duplicate, available with AltGr + `. | ∨ | Logical or – added on key where another logical symbol (¬) is available. |
| 1 ! | ¹ | Superscript one – removed, rarely needed (contrary to superscript 2 and 3, that are used in units of area and volume). | ≠ | Not equal to – added on key ! because it it is often written as !=. |
| 2 @ | ⅛ | Fraction 1/8 – removed, since it is rarely used and more popular vulgar fractions (thirds, fifths) are not present. | ¿ | Inverted question mark – moved near similar character: inverted exclamation mark. |
| 4 $ | ¼ | Fraction 1/4 – moved to AltGr + Shift + 4 for consistency with ¾. | ¢ | Cent sign – new, used with dollar (on the same key) and euro (on the near-by key). |
| 4 $ | $ | Dollar sign – duplicate, available with Shift + 4. | ¼ | Fraction 1/4 – moved for consistency with ¾. |
| 5 % | ½ | Fraction 1/2 – moved to the near-by key (AltGr + 6). | € | Euro sign – new, placed where it is engraved on many keyboards. |
| 5 % | ⅜ | Fraction 3/8 – removed, since it is rarely used and more popular vulgar fractions (thirds, fifths) are not present. | ‰ | Permille – new, placed on % key. |
| 6 ^ | ¾ | Fraction 3/4 – moved to AltGr + Shift + 8. | ½ | Fraction 1/2 – moved to make place for euro sign. |
| 6 ^ | ⅝ | Fraction 5/8 – removed, since it is rarely used and more popular vulgar fractions (thirds, fifths) are not present. | ∧ | Logical and – new, placed where similarly-looking ^ is available. |
| 7 & | { | Left curly brace – duplicate. | § | Section (in Polish called paragraph) sign – new, placed where similarly-looking & is available. |
| 7 & | ⅞ | Fraction 7/8 – removed, since it is rarely used and more popular vulgar fractions (thirds, fifths) are not present. | ≈ | Almost equal to – new; its wavy shape is somewhat similar to ampersand and section sign. |
| 8 * | [ | Left square bracket – duplicate. | · | Middle dot, often used as multiplication sign – moved to key with asterisk, that is used as multiplication sign too. |
| 8 * | ™ | Trade mark sign – moved to more intuitive AltGr + Shift + T. | ¾ | Fraction 3/4 – moved for consistency with ¼. |
| 9 ( | ] | Right square bracket – duplicate. | « | French left-pointing quotation mark – new, used often in Polish too; placed where left parenthesis is. |
| 0 ) | } | Right curly brace – duplicate. | » | French right-pointing quotation mark – new, used often in Polish too; placed where right parenthesis is. |
| - _ | \ | Backslash – duplicate. | – | En dash – new, placed where other strokes are. |
| - _ | ¿ | Inverted question mark – moved near inverted exclamation mark. | — | Em dash – new, placed where other strokes are. |
| q Q | @ | At sign – duplicate. | π | Greek small letter pi – symbol of the most common mathematical constant; placed where another Greek letter (Ω) is. |
| w W | ł | Latin l with stroke – duplicate. | œ | Latin oe ligature – used eg. in French. |
| w W | Ł | Latin L with stroke – duplicate. | Œ | Latin OE ligature – used eg. in French. |
| r R | ¶ | Pilcrow – removed, completely not used in Polish. | © | Copyright sign – placed where another sign in circle (®) is. |
| t T | ŧ | Latin t with stroke – now available through dead stroke (AltGr + Shift + K). | ß | German sharp s (Eszett) – new. |
| t T | Ŧ | Latin T with stroke – now available through dead stroke (AltGr + Shift + K). | ™ | Trade mark sign – moved from AltGr + Shift + 8. |
| i I | ı | Latin dotless i – available through dead dot above (AltGr + Shift + /). | ↔ | Left-right arrow – used as logical equivalency sign; placed near other arrows. |
| f F | đ | Latin d with stroke – now available through dead stroke (AltGr + Shift + K). | æ | Latin ae ligature – used eg. in Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. |
| f F | ª | Feminine ordinal indicator – not used in Polish, can be replaced with superscripted a. | Æ | Latin AE ligature – used eg. in Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. |
| h H | ħ | Latin h with stroke – now available through dead stroke (AltGr + Shift + K). | ’ | Typographic apostrophe – moved from AltGr + Shift + B for easier access. |
| h H | Ħ | Latin H with stroke – now available through dead stroke (AltGr + Shift + K). | • | Bullet – new, often used to organize a list. |
| j J | j | Duplicate. | ə | Small schwa – used eg. in Azerbaijani. |
| j J | J | Duplicate. | Ə | Capital schwa – used eg. in Azerbaijani. |
| k K | ĸ | Greenlandic letter kra – used only in old orthography of Greenlandic, totally useless. | … | Ellipsis (in Polish: wielokropek) – often used punctuation mark. |
| k K | & | Ampersand – duplicate. | ◌̵ | Dead stroke (in Polish: martwa kreska) – can be used to generate letters Ø ø, Đ đ, Ŧ ŧ, Ħ ħ… |
| v V | “ | English left quotation mark – moved to AltGr + Shift + B. | „ | Polish left quotation mark – new, placed near right quotation mark. |
| b B | ’ | Typographic apostrophe – moved to AltGr + H. | “ | English left quotation mark – moved from AltGr + V. |
| m M | º | Masculine ordinal indicator – not used in Polish, can be replaced with superscripted o; easily confusable with degree sign. | ∞ | Infinity sign – new, near some other mathematical symbols. |
| , < | ─ | Horizontal connector – often not rendered, totally useless. | ≤ | Less-than or equal to – new, placed on less-than sign. |
| . > | · | Middle dot (often used as multiplication sign) – moved to AltGr + 8. | ≥ | Greater-than or equal to – new, placed on greater-than sign. |
| Space – duplicate. | Non-breaking space – new; location is obvious. | |||