Accents: how the heck do I put those accents on letters?

A MexConnect forum discussion thread

Posted by John Cummings on September 15, 1997

To be 100% correct you must use the numbers on the key pad on the right side of your keyboard. You also must have “Nums Lock” on. Then hold down the ‘alt’ key and type the appropriate 3 numbers. When you release the alt key you will see the accented letter.

Don’t forget that, with the exception of the Ñ, no capital letters are normally accented in Spanish.

These are the ones that apply to Spanish. There are others that you can discover. Just go through the different 3 number sequences and see what you get.

Posted by David McLaughlin on September 24, 1997

Thanks John.
For those who are using Microsoft programs (such as MS Word), you can also put accents on letters by:
Holding down the ‘Control’ key,
Press the key that contains the desired accent (‘ for the acute, ‘shiftkey’ ~).
Then the letter.

This should work across all MS programs

If you are working in html, the safest way to ensure all browsers show the accent is to use the html convention of “&(letter)acute;” or “&(letter n)tilde;” (omit the “s and the ()s).

For that small minority who own a Mac/Apple, the process is simpler (of course!).

For the “acute” accent mark on the “vowels” (a,e,i,o,u for those of you that have forgotten):
Hold down the “Option key”, press the “e” key, and then the letter you want accented.

For the “umlaut” ( ¨ ):
Hold down the “Option key”, press the “u” key, and then the letter you want accented.

For the “tilde” (~):
Hold down the “Option key”, press the “n” key, and then the letter you want accented.

Actually, in retrospect the Microsoft way is the simplest!! (But it only works with their programs).

David

Posted by Jim Hardy, October 2, 1997

If you’re using Windows 95 you can go into the control panel and click on “keyboard,” then click on the Language tab and then the Add button and choose Spanish (Mexican). Click on one of the radio buttons below the Add button to choose how to switch from the Spanish to English keyboard modes, and check the box saying “Enable indicator on taskbar.” From then on you can choose whether to be in the Spanish or English keyboard mode. If you’re in the Spanish keyboard mode but using an American English keyboard, the semicolon is the ñ and the colon the Ñ. To put an accent over a character, hit the left bracket key, i.e. the [ just before the vowel you want accented. The bracket won’t show up but after you hit the vowel the accent will show up over the vowel. To put double dots over a vowel, such as the “u” in güero, hit the { key before the vowel, i.e. shift [