Accents and diacriticals in your computer

The following are instructions of different methods to input accents and other diacritical marks easily in your computer. There are several ways to achieve this, have a look and see which one is more convenient for you. There are also some links to Spanish dictionaries online, a very useful resource.

• Accents in Windows
  • Accents in MS Word only
  • Accents in Windows 95, 98, ME (all applications)
  • Accents in Windows XP (all applications)
  • The Alt + NumPad input method
• Accents in Macintosh
• Online dictionaries

Accents in Windows

Accents in MS Word only

Accents in Word are easy, you don't have to do any special setup. To get the accent, simply press Control + Apostrophe, release them and them press the letter you want the accent on. That's it! This works for all accent-type characters. For example, if you need to input a Portuguese nasal vowel, you would press Control + ~ (that is, Control + Shift + the ` key) and then the vowel you want. Use the same method for the Spanish "ñ". You can get ¿ by pressing Alt + Control + Shift + ? and ¡ with Alt + Control + Shift + ! If you want to input any of the signs that are now dead keys, such as apostrophe or quotation marks, what you do is press the key and then space.

Accents in Windows 95, 98, ME (all applications)

If you want to get your accents in any application and with an easier input method, follow these instructions:

From the Start Menu, go to Settings and choose Control Panel. Double-click on Keyboard and go to the Language tab. There should only be English-United States listed there. Highlight that and press Properties. From the drop-down menu, select "United States-International" and have your original Win9x CD handy, because it is going to ask for it. Press OK and you are set to go.

Once you do this, what you will get is a small blue box with "En" written on it sitting in the system tray (the space with little icons bottom right, just by the clock). You click on that and you will get a pop-up menu. Select "English (International)" there, and the keyboard layout will have changed so that all the accent keys now will be dead keys. This means that in order to get an accented character, you just press the accent key (apostrophe), release it and then the vowel (for ñ press ~ + n; for ¡ right ALT and 1; for ¿ right ALT and /). You can come back to the original layout by repeating the process and selecting "English (United States)" any time.

Alternatively, you could go all the way and select a full Spanish keyboard layout. This layout makes it easier to input some characters, such as ñ, ç, ¿ or ¡, but some of the keys are in slightly different positions from the standard American keyboard. If you are interested, you can find instructions and an image with the keyboard layout in this page by Paul Miller (thanks, Paul).

Accents in Windows XP (all applications)

You can get the equivalent layout to the one given above in Windows XP, but the process is a bit more convoluted, they just hid the place deeper in the new version of Windows:

From the Start Menu, open the Control Panel, double-click on Regional and Language Options, go to the Languages tab there. Choose Details and there click on Add, in Layout look for "United States-International." Then go to Language Bar Settings and uncheck "Turn off advanced text services" in order to get the selection icon in the system tray as explained above. Follow the previous instructions in order to enter accented and special characters.

The Alt + NumPad input method

An alternative input method that works across all apps and flavors of Windows is to use the Alt key and a number in the numeric pad to the right of the standard keyboard. Don't forget to check that this pad is activated (use the NumLock key)! You simply press Alt, and without releasing it type the number corresponding to the character you want in the numeric pad. These are some of the character codes:

Accents in Macintosh

An input method that works in all applications in a Mac is the following: for accent press Option + e, then the letter you want the accent on. For the ~ diacritical (as in Spanish ñ and Portuguese nasal vowels), Option + n and the letter. For ¿ Option + Shift + / and for ¡ Option + 1.

Online dictionaries

Last, but not least, a couple of web sites with a great resource, a Spanish dictionary:

• Diccionario de la Real Academia Española: This is THE authoritative dictionary of the Spanish language. The new edition (2001) was just put up on the web. Spanish monolingual dictionary.
• Diccionarios.com : Nice site with online versions of several dictionaries by the Spanish publishing house Vox. To be noted: Spanish monolingual dictionary, English-Spanish bilingual dictionary, Spanish thesaurus and a few other goodies.