The US International English keyboard layout is recommended for those who are comfortable with the qwerty keyboard and need a variety of accent marks or symbols. It uses an intuitive method which works with most (perhaps all) Windows applications such as MS Office and web page software, while keeping the familiar qwerty layout. The installation details are below.

To use, press one of the five punctuation keys `  ~  ^  '   "  , then the letter to be modified. 
' + a = á,  " + u = ü,  ' + c = ç     etc

Or use the right alt (or AltChar) key  + another key: 
right alt  + ? = ¿    + ! = ¡     + c = ©     + e  = é    +5 = €.   This image shows many more.



Note that this system maintains the "qwerty" layout. However, each modifier key `  ~  ^  '   "  must be followed by the space bar to use just that key. The system accepts common words, such as it's, without the space bar.

Layout Installation:
Win XP: Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Regional and Language Options. Click the Language(s) tab. Click Details, then Add. Choose an Input language and a Keyboard Layout/IME. Use Apply to finish the process; the Windows installation CD may be needed. The keyboard or multilanguage sections in Start - Help may provide details. Screen images of the installation are here. For Win 2000 click this Carnegie Mellon site; for Win XP click this Penn State Technology site.

Windows Vista: Click Start, Control Panel, Clock, Language and Region, Change Keyboards. In the new window, click on the Change Keyboards button. This opens a new window called "Text Services and Input Languages". Click on the Add button. Scroll & check the English (United States) - United States-International keyboard. Click OK. Finally, in the upper part of the "Text Services and Input Languages" window, open the drop-down menu called Default Input Language and choose English (United States) - United States-International as your default for all input fields.

alt+shift  rotates through several language keyboards. Checking the Enable Indicator On Taskbar puts the default language on the taskbar. Or click the taskbar language icon to switch to another language. In Win XP, click the Preferences section for these steps.