How to type accent marks

[Tomisimo]

Dealing with accent marks
~ a.k.a. How to type accent marks on the computer ~

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.