Does anybody else find it impossible to put in foreign accents on Word and so on? How to do them?

Question

All I can do is á, é, í, ó, ú, Á, É, Í,Ó, and Ú

I need instructions on how to actually press each button step by step, for dummies etc etc.

Answer 1

insert symbols. that's the way i do it.

instructions are here:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/H...

Answer 2

Apart from Insert Symbol, there's a few other ways...

In the UK keyboard layout, I just type AltGr and the vowel: ÁÉÍÓÚáéíóú - it only works for acute accents, but it's useful nonetheless.

If you're using the default US keyboard layout, you might have to change to the “US international” layout to get this shortcut, however it also adds a few other things, which you might not like - see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306560#5

Answer 3

The easiest way is to use the Alt key and the RIGHT HAND number keyboard.

Press down Alt, type in the code, release and voilà!

é = alt + 130

à = alt + 133

â = alt +0226

ê = alt + 136

ã = alt + 0227

ó = alt + 0243

ô = alt + 147

î = alt + 140.

If you want any more, ask.

Answer 4

Aztel is right about the acute accents (ctrl, and ' whilst pressing the letter simultaneously), however if you press ctrl, and the button next to the one (on a UK keyboard) you can also do a grave accent. Additionally to this if you go on the insert symbol list and highlight a symbol, you can change the shortcut key to whatever you want to make the symbol come up when typing. Therefore you can change your keyboard so that it is customised how you want it so you can easily use any symbol whilst typing

If you can't see what i mean ask again and i will try and answer in more detail

Good luck

Fantastic answer by Cosimo.

Answer 5

Right, no symbol map, no copy and paste, you want to type the accents straight in with a UK keyboard without pausing ... pay attention, I will say this only five or six times :) ...

Let's say you want the acute accent, á é í ó ú ...

1. press the Control key (Ctrl) and hold it down;

2. press the apostrophe key (it's with @ on my keyboard)

3. release both keys and type the vowel (lower or upper case as you wish).

Let's say you want the grave accent, very useful for Italian, à è ì ò ù ...

1. press the Control key (Ctrl) and hold it down;

2. press the grave accent key (it's right below Esc on my keyboard)

3. release both keys and type the vowel (lower or upper case as you wish).

Let's say you want the circumflex accent, â ê î ô û ...

1. press the Control key (Ctrl) and hold it down;

2. press the Shift key and hold that down too;

3. press the circumflex or caret key (that's usually the same key as 6)

4. release all three keys and type the vowel (lower or upper case as you wish).

Let's say you want the tilde, ñ ã õ  ...

1. press the Control key (Ctrl) and hold it down;

2. press the Shift key and hold that down too;

3. press the tilde key (that's with # on my keyboard)

4. release all three keys and type the letter you want.

Let's say you want the cedilla, ç  ...

1. press the Control key (Ctrl) and hold it down;

2. press the comma;

3. release both keys and type c.

Let's say you want the umlaut (or diaeresis), ä ë ï ö ü ...

1. press the Control key (Ctrl) and hold it down;

2. press the Shift key and hold that down too;

3. press the colon;

4. release all three keys and type the vowel (lower or upper case as you wish).

It takes a bit of practice, but after a while, you will be able to type in Italian, French, Portuguese, German, whatever, without pausing to copy and paste or insert from the character map or the symbol set.

Answer 6

Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Character Map.  It works using copy and paste, and will put characters anywhere (eg: bulletin boards, MSN etc)

Right click the character map button and pin it to your start menu for future use.

For Word, you can also click on INSERT then click on SYMBOL.  You can then just select the special character you want and click the insert button on the window.  You can change the font if you like ... I use a lot of the characters (mini icons really) in WINGDINGS font to brighten up my text.