How to type accent marks
 

On Windows

Option one: "Alt Codes"
Learn the "Alt codes" or ASCII codes for each accented letter that you need to type. This is kind of clumsy, but when I was taking Spanish classes, and needed to type my papers and stuff on different computers, knowing these codes was a lifesaver at times. The codes are:

Hold down Alt and type the number on the numpad

Code	Letter it produces
Alt + 160	á
Alt + 130	é
Alt + 161	í
Alt + 162	ó
Alt + 163	ú
Alt + 164	ñ
Alt + 129	ü
Alt + 0193	Á
Alt + 144	É
Alt + 0205	Í
Alt + 0211	Ó
Alt + 0218	Ú
Alt + 165	Ñ
Alt + 154	Ü
Alt + 168	¿
Alt + 173	¡

Option two: Typing in Word
If you do your word processing in Word, there are some built-in shortcuts.

For the letters with an accent mark, (áéíóú)

Ctrl + ‘, then the letter
That is, Hold down Ctrl and press the apostrophe key, then release them and press the letter you want

For the capital letters with an accent mark, (ÁÉÍÓÚ)

Ctrl + ‘, then Shift + the letter
That is, Hold down Ctrl and press the apostrophe key, then release them and hold down shift and press the letter you want.

For the umlaut (üÜ)

Ctrl + :, then u => ü
Ctrl + :, then U => Ü

There are also menu options for inserting special characters into a Word document.

Option three: Install a Spanish Keyboard on your computer
This is by far the best option and the one I use, and it's not hard to do. This allows you to easily type all the special characters in any program.

Basically just go to Start => Settings => Control Panel => Keyboard and double-click on Keyboard. This will open up the Keyboard properties dialog box where you can add an "input locale", choose ES Spanish International
Now you will be able to type the chars by simple pressing the single apostrophe key once (nothing will happen/appear), and then press the vowel you want an accent mark over. the ñ is produced with the semi-colon key, and to produce the umlauted u (ü), hold down shift while pressing the apostrophe key and then press the u.

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

I was thinking about typing this up myself but you beat me to it (and did a better job than I would ;))

Well done, and thank you!

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

I had a lot of fun with the formatting, but man, I spent over 30 minutes doing it. Anyways, I hope it helps someone. I used to carry a little card I printed in my wallet with the Alt codes. Something like this:

http://img304.imageshack.us/img304/4268/altcodes7zs.gif

Anyway, I'm sure there's a lot of things I missed too. :)

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

Thanks tomisimo, that's really cool. I'm going to print out the codes to carry with me now.

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

It doesn't do anything. D:

Whyever not?

Press and hold alt, and then type in order the numbers? It isn't working. *sigh*

I'll just copy-'n'-paste from Word (like always), then.

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

Are you trying to use them, for example in the text field to post here? I know if Firefox they don't work because when you press Alt Firefox thinks you are using the keyboard shortcuts for the menus. In internet Explorer it does work, as well as in Word/Notepad etc. Where we you trying to use the alt codes when they didn't work?

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

You have to use the keypad on the right for the alt codes to work, it won't work with the numbers above the letter keys. I use firefox and it works just fine. Make sure Num Lock is on too.

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

OK, my problem was I had the Google toolbar installed in Firefox and with Alt + Numbers it jumped up to the search box. Without the toolbar it should work fine. :)

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

Oh, num lock must be on, eh? I think that's where my difficulties were. Let's try this again...

á

Yay! How exciting.

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

If you know how to modify your computer's BIOS settings, there's usually a setting to have the numlock be on when the computer boots up. :)

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

I've found that in several keyboards AltGr+4 and a space inserts a "~". If instead of a space I press "n", I get a "ñ".

I have accents and Ñs, even çs, in my keyboard, but no ~ :P

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

Good trick, hadn't seen that one before.


And for those of you who don't have the AltGr key on your keyboard, just use the Alt key to the right of the spacebar. :)

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

What's the Altgr key? Why is it called that?

Re: Dealing with accent marks
 

I didn't understand the Alt Gr + 4 business, but here's a semi-useful tip that should work in both Windows and Linux systems. If you hold down the Alt Gr key and then type a vowel, you'll get the vowel with an accent over it. If you do this with the Caps Lock on, or in combination with the Shift key, you'll get an accented capital vowel. Thus [Alt Gr] + [o] should give you ó.

Doesn't seem to work with other letters, though! :(:)

Maybe it doesn't work for me because on UK keyboards Alt Gr + 4 is what you type for the euro symbol (€)?

Thanks for the tip redbeard, I´ve been playing around with Ubuntu Linux a bit, and one of the things I still need to figure out is how to easily type the Spanish characters.

my laptop doesn't have those num key pad things.

does your laptop have numbers on the u i o j k l keys?

If yes then you also have an Fn key somewhere around the CRTL ALT keys.

If you press and keep pressed that Fn and the ALT keys while typig the u i o j k l keys, you'll have accented letters.

But you can get them in any informatics's store where you live.

It's very easy to install even you have turn on the laptop, because it's for USB's ports.

oh yes I do have them. thanks for the info

You're welcome.

Note that if you have multiple keyboards installed (e.g. English and Spanish) you can switch between them with (IIRC) left-Alt left-Shift. I'm sure that key combination can be configured too, but since I don't have Windows I can't test it.

Tomísimo, I don't know how you configure the keyboard in Gnome but if you use KDE instead (Kubuntu) it's pretty easy. There is a general alternative, if you're confident, which is to change the default X keyboard. I think that should be
Then tell it not to auto-detect keyboard and force it to es.

I am in search of a small program or script that will enable me to asign hotkeys or somehow easily type the spanish special (stressed) characters

any suggestion?

thanks

anyone please???

In what context? It's pretty easy to use the alt keys, for instance. Or it's not too hard to install a Spanish language keyboard layout and switch to it with a hoykey to type accented chars.

Or are you looking for a Windows program that would allow you to type accented characters?

yes, that exactly

You may be interested in this.

this is interesting indeed, but it does not enable someone to type stressed i by pressing ctrl+i for example..

on the pc (vista) i just have the option to switch to the american english keyboard (and back to the british keyboard when i want to use that) means when it is on AE all i have to do it hold altgr and type the letter and it gives me the accent also the ñ and the upside down ¡, haven't figure out the ¿ tho.. or the ¨ but they'll be there somewhere...

on a mac it's easy enough:

alt+e then type the letter gives you the accent,
alt+n then type n gives you the ñ,
shift+alt+? gives you the ¿
and alt+1 give you the ¡,
alt+u follow by any letter gives you the 2 dots ü

You may find it useful to type out this layout for the Spanish International keyboard, for reference purposes.

To install a Spanish Keyboard

Click on Start
Select and click on Control Panel
Select and click on Regional and Language Options
Scroll down language options to find Spanish (Spain) or other option. Now click OK
You can now activate your new keyboard layout
Click on the small blue square [EN] icon
(usually near the bottom right hand of your screen)
Select and click [ES]
Your main keyboard is still QWERTY, but the extra Spanish letters (Ñ Ç) and punctuation symbols (¿ and ¡) are found outside the English alphabetic area.
Apart from the full stop, comma and exclamation mark, all other punctuation marks have moved.
This keyboard works with all fonts and text writing applications (including e-mails)
Don’t worry if you can’t find £, [ ], { }, as you can toggle freely between [EN] and [ES] at any time!

Alt + Ctrl 4 = €
Alt + 0191 = ¿
Alt + 173 = ¡

These are useful for Spanish addresses
Alt + 0170 = ª
Alt + 0186 = º
Alt + 0185 = ¹
Alt + 0178 = ²
Alt + 0179 = ³

Here is what I do--it's very effective and easy.

On my computer:
I installed the United States International keyboard*, and got rid of the old keyboard (English (US)). There is no reason to keep the old keyboard, as the new one can do everything the old one can do, plus much more with the help of the Alt key on the right hand side.
Without holding down the right alt, it functions identically to the standard keyboard that we know and love, with the exception that to get the single double quotation marks, you have to press spacebar immediately after (don't worry, the space doesn't appear in the text) if you follow it by a vowel.

*Full name: English (United States) United States-International
FAQ
Q: Caballero, why don't you use the Alt Codes?
A: Because they take too long to type, and the numbers are hard to remember. So it makes typing Spanish seem so much more difficult than typing English.

Q: Why don't you install one of the Spanish keyboards and keep the default keyboard English (US) like many other people do?
A: Because it is really not fun to have to switch between the keyboards, and often the wrong one comes up, when you really wanted the other one. Also the English (United States) United States-International keyboard can do everything the Spanish keyboard can do and much more, and unless you use the Right alt key, it works the same as the regular English (US) keyboard works, which is what my actual keyboard is. If I set it to a different country's keyboard, the buttons on my keyboard wouldn't all work as advertised.

Q: Why don't you have both keyboards installed: the English (US) and the English (United States) United States-International?
A: Again, I'd have to switch back and forth, and besides having to use the space after using ' or " if they come before a vowel, the keyboards are exactly identical.

Q: OK, you convinced me. I removed the English (US) keyboard layout from Windows (or Linux), and installed the English (United States) United States-International keyboard. Now, how do I use it?
A: Very simple. When you want to write in English, just use it like you always have before. When you want to write in Spanish to get special characters, press and hold the Alt on the right side of your keyboard. This is your brand new Alt Gr key, just like they have in other countries besides the US--it's just not labelled--but that's ok. Just remember left Alt is your normal Alt key, and right Alt will produce special characters. Another great thing about it is that you just press down right alt and the character you want to modify--for Spanish, it's extremely intuitive--right alt+! gives you ¡, with ? it gives you ¿, with the vowels aeiou, it gives you áéíóú, and with n it gives you ñ. You can also press the single quote key release it and press aeiou, and it will also accent those.

Q: What else can I do with this keyboard?
A: You can also type special characters in many other languages, as well as special characters like © (right alt+c). For Spanish (and of course English) it's very intuitive, but for other languages it can be less intuitive. Just experiment around with holding the right alt key down and pressing other keys to see what you have available. For instance, if you needed to write in Old English the word "hwæt", the æ is Right Alt+z. You can use the ~/` key at the top right next to the 1 key to get a grave accent for use in Italian, Catalan, and French. Right alt + d gives you the Faroese, Icelandic, and Old English eth: ð, and with T you get the Icelandic, and Old English runic thorn letter: þ.

@Caballero :thumbsup: :good:

I'm always amazed how complicated people make typing accented characters. AltGr is your friend. On a Mac it's beautifully easy to type loads of languages with the US International keyboard, without having to memorize unicode sequences éèüöþÞæÆýø2º3ªðÐçñǒî«»—“” ‘’„¿¡ßœ etc... The AltGr key on Windows tries to make it easy too.

All these things certainly work, but if you don't have a number keypad the numbers above qwertyuiop don't respond:(

Well, if you absolutely have to do it like that (and not my easy method), you can use the Fn key, if you have a laptop, and another key to simulate a numeric keyboard. Most, but not all laptops support that.

Muchas gracias a todos por las ideas y consejos sobre este tema. No me gusta usar los "Alt Codes" porque se necesita marcar mucho. Necesito la habilidad de escriber más rápìdo. He instalado dos teclados diferentes de espanol (Latin America, Espanol), y eso es mejor, pero el problema es que cuando quiero escribir los "emoticons" (usando : ) ( etc,) o "quote marks", necesito cambiar al teclado de ingés. Hay un teclado de espanol mejor que evita este problema? O tal vez se puede cambiar teclados más rápido con una serie corto de teclados?

He pensado en formar un teclado "custom", pero no he tenido éxito con los detalles. Para mí, el teclado perfecto sería el de inglés, pero usaría el "single quote mark key ' " para indicar el cambio a una letra de espanol. Por ejemplo:

'a = á
'e = é
'i = í
'o = ó
'u = ú
'n = ń
'? = upside down question mark
'! = upside down exclamation mark

Todavía se falta un símbolo para el umlaut, pero tal vez usar el teclado ; exactament como se usa el '

Using this method there is still a need to indicate the umlaut. Perhaps using the ; key to indicate the umlaut, e.g. ;u = umlaut.

El otro problema con este método es que no se puede usar el teclado '. Ya sé que en espanol no se scribe Jim's pero para mí seriá mejor tener la habilidad de continuar usar ' como se usa ´ en inglés. Tal vez el teclado de ` (in the upper left corner, under the tilde) would be a good substitute for '.

I don't think that key gets used much for anything. I'm looking for a method that makes as few changes to the English keyboard as possible. So that I don't have to remember the layout for one thing, and also the remappings that seem popular make it much harder to use : : ( ) and ! ? for their regular punction use or in emoticons.

Sorry to be switching back to English for this. It's much easier to write this way, and probably easier to read and understand :)

Is anyone following me on this? In my opinion what would be really slick is having a single key to press just before the a, e , i, o u, and n, ! ? to give the required spanish symbol. The only problem I see is that a second such key, or other method to write the umlaut would be needed. As I said, the ` key seems like it would be good, as the ' key could then remain used as it is in English for 's. Not that it is really needed in Spanish, but for those switching back and forth between English and Spanish frequently it seems like a benefit - you don't have to choose between an English and Spanish Keyboard. Or at least a lot less frequently. The problem I see with the ` key is that it is just not as comfortable as the ', but maybe that would change with some practice.

I'm just curious if anyone else has thought about any of this, or maybe even actually done something about it and built a custom key board. I got bogged down in the technical details of actually doing a custom keyboard. If anyone had insights into that I would greatly appreciate it, as I would like to give this a try and see if it would work.

Thanks for listening, and in advance for any ideas offered in response. English Mode off :)

Ciao!


PS - Surely someone much smarter than me has figured out a better way around this. What do all of the native Spanish speakers do for a keyboard? Do they just learned a remapped Spanish keyboard? Yuck. Or rather, guácala! It seems like that makes writing emoticons and using symbols like :, ; " and (, ) more difficult. Please correct me if I'm looking at this all wrong :) Thanks!

Try switching to Spanish keyboard (instructions are in former posts here); all the symbols you need for typing in English and Spanish (and the German characters with umlaut) are there... Latin-American version doesn't type French characters (like ç, ^ and `), but Spanish one does.
All you'll need to do is re-map the keyboard in your head, which is rather easy after a couple of hours. :)

Also there're software that you can download from Internet where you can switch between both language together.

If you need the link, I will pleased to give you the link where you can get it.

Best Regards.

I did most of what Timisimo did in his 3rd Option... except I left Input Language as English (United States) and for Keyboard layout/IME I selected United States-International.

Which seems to work the same way.
á = ' + a
é = ' + e
í = ' + i
ó = ' + o
ú = ' + u
ñ = ~ + n
ü = " + u
¡ = Alt (hold down) + !
¿ = Alt (hold down) + ?

On the last 2 I had to hold down the right alt key. But I found this thread to be the most useful cause of the neat little program that was attach to it. Generate accent Spanish letters That little program is neat and a real time saver.

And now there is a program out there...

http://holdkey.eu/

Give it a try, it works with any language. I was just told about it and it seems it is going to be the one that I will use from now on. :)

Hello guys!
I just preinstal my windows (7) and somehow my AltGr button stop to make accent marks over the letters. I put the same drivers and the same keyboards, even i tryed with spanish one - it doesn't work any more. The laptop acts like the AltGr button is just regular Alt button in every program. Can you help me with this pls.

A mi parecer, recibirías más ayuda con tu problema si acudieras a los sitios/foros que ofrecen soporte técnico, tales como este o este.

bloody hell, the second site worked! finaly! Rusty, muchas gracias amigo!

I have noticed that the "alt 160/alt 130 way of printing accent marks no-longer works. As far as I can tell, later Windows products changed that feature. Does anyone know a way of printing accent marks on an English keyboard?

PS I just found out how. For those who are interested, you may find it here:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~eyepes/newgr/accsp.htm