Question: I'm using Microsoft Windows 10 with the United States international keyboard and I can easily type â by pressing ^ (shift+6) followed by pressing a. But when I do ^ followed by c, g, h, j or s, I just get: ^c, ^g, ^h, ^j and ^s respectively. 

How do I type these characters on a United States International keyboard on on Windows 10?

**update**: Oh, one more thing... my keyboard doesn't have a numeric keypad.

Answer: 
These characters are not directly available on the (Windows) US-International keyboard; you would need to paste them from Character Map, use their ALT-codes on the numeric keypad, or use a third-party program such as a macro processor like [AutoHotKey](https://autohotkey.com). Someone has already done a [AHK script to convert 'x' convention to Esperanto characters](https://lernu.net/eo/forumo/temo/16768). (*see below regarding "'x' convention*)

If you would prefer to configure AutoHotKey to match the behavior of the US-International keyboard, the below AHK script should be saved as Unicode with the Byte-Order mark; it will convert ^ followed by c, g, h, j, and s, or ~ followed by u, as the Esperanto letters.

```
#Hotstring ? C * 

::^c::ĉ
::^C::Ĉ
::^g::ĝ
::^G::Ĝ
::^h::ĥ
::^H::Ĥ
::^j::ĵ
::^J::Ĵ
::^s::ŝ
::^S::Ŝ
::~u::ŭ
::~U::Ŭ

```

Alternatively, use a different keyboard driver that supports the Esperanto characters, though this doesn’t really answer your question, since you specified US-International.

In general, Esperanto text processing is difficult, as there are few if any Esperanto-specific keyboard drivers available; most of the time, one of two alternative conventions are used - the "h" convention, where the altered letters are followed by 'h' (e.g., ĉ is ch, ĝ is gh, ĥ is hh, ĵ is jh, and ŝ is sh), and the 'x' convention, where the altered letters are followed by 'x' (e.g., ĉ is cx, ĝ is gx, ĥ is hx, ĵ is jx, and ŝ is sx). The impression I get is that the 'x' convention is preferred, as 'x' is not otherwise used in Esperanto, and thus straight search-and-replace is adequate to 'fix' the results.
Choice for particular approach may depend on how and where do 
you plan to input those characters. Either way I'd recommend looking into Autohotkey app.

My opinion is that the most efficient approach would be to simply use 
some **transliteration** to type it in, and use auto-conversion later on. 

For example, I personally would use such rules for the input text:

```
ĉ   ch  
ĝ   dzh  
ĥ   x   (or kh)   
ĵ   zh  
ŝ   sh  
ŭ   w  

```

This is almost kind of 'average translit' (opinions may vary ;)  

Although there maybe special convention for this in Esperanto community, 
I would still use the above, because it is more close to widely accepted translit and I don't need to learn 'yet another translit'. 

Important is that the substitution should work in both directions, i.e. 
you can automatically convert same text from and to Esperanto spelling.
And thus able to convert the text which already includes mixed spelling.
(But you should check this, as I am not an esperantist myself)

This will allow for making a script, say with Autohotkey, which applies the conversion of the text. 

So what you do is simply type the text with Latin characters and then 
you can bind some key to run the script which makes the conversion of 
e.g. currently selected text.

Such approach has benefits: 

* typing speed: no need to input special characters
* more familiar (if you already used translit in similar cases)
* in an informal conversation people should understand 
it even without conversion.