WD: How to Enter Accented Characters from the Keyboard

ID: Q120085

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

Word provides a way to enter characters that take an accent grave, apostrophe, caret, colon, or tilde directly from the keyboard.

For example, you can use the keyboard to type an accented "a" (an "a" with an apostrophe above it).

MORE INFORMATION

To create these combinations on screen, you can use the following symbols: 

   accent acute (')
   accent grave (`)
   tilde (~)
   caret (^)
   colon (:)
The letters they can be placed above are: 

   A, a, E, e, I, i, O, o, U, u, Y, y

Windows

1. While holding the CTRL key, type the character that will appear above 

   the letter.

   NOTE: To add the tilde, colon or the caret character, press CTRL+SHIFT
   and then type the character that will appear above the letter.

   The status bar shows "CTRL+<key>" where <key> is the key you pressed,
   but nothing appears on the screen.
2. Type the desired letter. 

   The new combination appears in the document.
If you type a legitimate symbol but type an ineligible letter, you'll hear a beep. If you press CTRL plus a symbol that is invalid, you'll see just the character and no symbol above it.

Macintosh

1. While holding the OPTION key, type the character that will appear above 

   the letter as indicated by the following table:

   Character above letter          Press this key
   ----------------------          --------------

     accent acute (')                `
     accent grave (`)                e
     tilde (~)                       n
     caret (^)                       i
     colon (:)                       u
2. Type the desired letter. 

   The new combination appears in the document.
If you type a legitimate symbol, but type an ineligible letter, the symbol and letter will be placed in the document as separate characters.

REFERENCES

Word 98 Macintosh Edition

For more information about this topic, click the Help button on the Standard toolbar and search on "accent" (without the quotation marks). Select "Insert symbols or special characters" topic, and then click "Type international characters."

Word 6.x (Windows and Macintosh) 7.0

For more information about this topic, double-click the Help button on the Standard toolbar and search (Show Topics) on "accent", or "international" (without the quotation marks). Select the "Creating international letters with a U.S. keyboard" topic and click the Go To button.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 

   ARTICLE-ID: Q97728
   TITLE     : Using US-Int'l Keyboard Layout to Type Accented Characters
"Microsoft Word User's Guide," version 6.0, pages 48-49

Additional query words: foreign accented accents accent marks combination language docerr 

Keywords          : kbualink97 kbusage winword word6 word7 word95 kbhowto 
Version           : 6.0 6.0a 6.0c 7.0 7.0a
Platform          : WINDOWS

Last Reviewed: December 8, 1998