Question asked on OOo mailing list - probably better asked here ??

[Alan]

The X server does keyboard mapping of keys and you can use X to map keys.
If you have an international keyboard set up then X ships with compose
functionality which for the subset of symbols it does is usually easier
to learn.

Basically hit alt (left alt to US folks) and shift together, then let go
of both, now type two keys in sequence that compose the resulting symbol.

The compose pairs are designed to be logical thus

	ss = ß
	a' = á
	e^ = ê
	e= = €
	c, = ç

and so on

Alan