Typing International Accent Marks and Diacritics: Theory, Charts,& Tips for the QWERTY keyboard (mostly Windows)

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Enter your search terms Submit search form   Web www.starr.net Platforms, software applications, operating systems, versions, and user preferences influence how one works with accent and other marks. Every method has its defenders. The International English Keyboard is preferred by those who know the qwerty keyboard, while the specific language keyboards are useful to those who are familiar with them. Fans of MS Word enjoy its simplicity. The ALT key codes or the Character Map can save the day when nothing else works.

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Windows, Using Roman Alphabets 
(Note that the various versions of Windows, including WinXP and Vista, vary slightly in the details and vocabulary but have similar methods.)

Because individual applications such as word processors or HTML tags have their own schemes (Word, Photoshop, HTML) they are less likely to be transferable to other software applications. However, most Windows applications, including word processors, will accept these methods: 

• Change/add Keyboard
• International English Keyboard (the easiest for a combination of many Western European accent marks)
• Alt Key Codes
  
• Character Map
• Other European, Right-Left, and Asian Keyboards

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• Change or add Keyboards
Microsoft Windows allows  a number of different keyboard languages and layouts. Installation of the "typical", or "default" options provides capabilities for French, Spanish, and other Western European languages. 

In Win XP, to change the keyboard languages and layout, click Start , then choose Settings, Control Panel, and Regional and Language Options. Click the "Languages" tab, then the "Details" button, the "Settings" tab, and the "Add" button. Now choose an input language from a long list. ( IF the "Input language" is English (United States), the US-International English keyboard can be selected by checking the "Keyboard layout/IME" box and choosing it from the list.) Click the ok button to close the Input window. If the added language is a permanent choice, be sure to click Apply to finish the process (the Windows installation CD is not usually needed). For an illustrated version of these directions click here. The keyboard and multilanguage sections in Start - Help and a Penn State site have more information. For Windows 2000 click this Carnegie Mellon site.

Windows Vista: (mostly from this site)

- 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.

Keyboard layouts for many languages are available. However, they usually do not follow the "QWERTY" layout and some characters, especially punctuation, will not correspond to those printed on your keys. French uses "AZERTY" with letters a/q and z/w interchanged compared to the US keyboard.

for layout charts for several languages.
Once the language keyboards are installed, using alt+shift or a designated variation rotates through them (adjustable by changes after pressing the "Key Settings" button. Click the taskbar language icon to switch to another language.  
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• The US-International English keyboard layout is installed as above (see 7 step installation details) and has these features:
• It uses the following intuitive methods which work with most (or all) Windows applications, while keeping the familiar QWERTY keyboard. 
• Press one of the five modifier keys `  '  "  ~  ^ , then the letter to be modified. ( ' then a = á,   " then u = ü, ' then c = ç, etc. )  
• Press the right alt key  + another key. Examples:
  right alt + ,  = ç  (or  ' + c) 
              + ? = ¿ 
              + ! = ¡ 
              + c = © 
    + 5 = Euro currency symbol      for a complete chart and printer-friendly summary.
• Note that this maintains the "qwerty" layout. However, each modifier key `  '  "  ~  ^  must be followed by pressing the space bar if it is actually intended. The system is smart enough to accept words requiring an apostrophe, such as it's, without the space bar.    
• To install US-International English + United States English in Win 9X: 
• One can fool a Win 9X system by adding an unused language, such as Icelandic. Then change its layout to the US-International in the language properties or layout section.  
• Windows XP allows both. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Regional...options, Languages, Details, Settings, Add. Set Input Language to English - United States. Set Keyboard layout/IME to United States-International. Press Apply and OK.   
• If you are having punctuation key troubles such as your computer's quote and apostrophe key behaving strangely, the cause may be that your keyboard was accidentally set to the International English Keyboard. The solution is to reset it to a standard English or United States keyboard. 

Win XP: For right-to-left  and East Asian languages select Start, Control Panel, Regional and Language Options (in Vista: Clock, Language and Region), the Languages tab, and then select the desired check box under Supplemental language support.

Win 9x: To create documents in a Central European, Cyrillic, Baltic, Greek, or Turkish-based language requires a computer with Multilanguage Support. Open Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel, click Windows Setup, the Multilanguage Support check box, and details. Check the desired languages and click OK twice. The Windows installation CD is needed.The changes will take effect after the computer is restarted. 

• Alt Key Codes (also called Alt number or altnum)
  
• Those who use only a few characters, but often and in many software applications, may prefer to keep the default United States English keyboard and memorize a few Alt key codes. This method uses the Alt key plus a four digit number entered via the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The modified letter appears after the keys are pressed and released. For touch-typers, the disadvantage is having to move their hands to the number pad on the right of the keyboard. Examples follow. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this works in every program, even in email and filenames.

• ALT + 0224 = à        ALT + 0225 = á
• ALT + 0232 = è        ALT + 0233 = é         ALT + 0200 = È
• ALT + 0242 = ò        ALT + 0243 = ó         ALT + 0241 = ñ      for complete lists.
 
• Character Map
• This is useful for the infrequent accent or symbol. It is located at Start - Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Character Map (OR click Start, Run, and type charmap). After choosing a font, double click the desired character(s). After clicking Copy, return to your document and paste. Some fonts (such as Symbol, Webding, and Wingding) provide Greek, icons, arrows and symbols. This system may fail if a particular combination of keystrokes, as seen in the lower right of the window, has been reserved for another application.
  
• PopChar is an improvement over the Character Map. When you need a special character, click the "P" box in the taskbar to display a table of characters. Select the desired character and it instantly appears in your document. HTML symbols are also available.

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1. Press CTRL and one of the punctuation keys ` ' , ~ : ^ that most closely resembles the accent needed. 
2. Release the two keys pressed in Step 1.
3. Press the letter to be modified and the accented character will appear. 
Thus Ctrl+: with u gives ü and Ctrl+, with C gives Ç. 
The following chart came from MS Word help/index/characters/inserting/type international. Newer versions have slightly different wording such as help/index/character, then click on Insert an international character by using a shortcut key. Note that some keys such as & require a shift key also.

Math and other Symbols

Word 2007 () has features similar to Word 2003 in the next paragraphs. It also has excellent features which one can reach by choosing the Insert Tab and then going to the symbols section of the "ribbon". Clicking on "Equation" provides about ten built-in equations including the area of a circle and the quadratic equation. Clicking on the Π above "Equation" opens a ribbon of math terms similar to those in the 2003 math equation editor. The drop-down arrows lead to many more terms. Clicking on "Symbol" results in a variety of those, many of which can be pasted into Dreamweaver and perhaps other software. For example, Dreamweaver 8 coded ¿ Á Ñ ç ř Π ℉ ⅛ ∫ √ ∑ (copied and pasted from Word 2007) as ¿ Á Ñ ç ř Π ℉ ⅛ ∫ √ ∑ which seem to be correct.

In Word 2003, many non-English characters, as well as icons for food, holidays, activities, signs, math, and much more, are found in the Insert menu, then select Symbol. Within this Symbol Window, the font Lucida Sans Unicode provides many accented and other characters for numerous languages.

Word's math equation editor which can compose complex equations is available on the Insert menu - object. If it is not installed, you may have to uninstall Word and reinstall Word with the editor. Purchasing a more convenient math editor such as Math Type is advised for those who write equations often.

More Math tips for MS Word: The Symbol font has many math characters. For example, after changing to the Symbol font, press the tilde key at upper left, without the shift key. You should see a bar. Then type another key such as s; the result for s is a lower case Greek sigma below the bar. If you need an x or X or other letter under the bar, change the font back to a text font such as Times Roman, and then type x or X. For superscripts, such as xⁿ: type x, then press and hold Ctrl, Shift, =. Then type n. To go back to normal letters, press and hold Ctrl, Shift, =. Subscripts are similar but omit the Shift key.

Word Perfect has spell checking, thesaurus, grammar, and hyphenation for numerous languages as well as these useful tips. Another feature is creating a custom keyboard. However, the remapped keyboard may only work within the WordPerfect application.

The Web and HTML tags 

If writing directly in HTML code, the tags for special characters are relatively intuitive. They start with & and end with a semi-colon . Examples are &euro; for €, &ouml; for ö, &Ouml; for Ö, &ntilde; for ñ,  &egrave; for è, &eacute; for é, &lt; for < (less than), &gt; for > (greater than), &amp; for &,  &nbsp; for non-breaking space, and &copy; for ©.ASCII numerical codes (such as &#128; for the Euro) are also available on the chart. for complete lists.

In a software application such as Dreamweaver, one can use the International English keyboard. Also, Dreamweaver has Insert - special characters in the menu bar.

The shareware application NoteTab which provides another method as well as other useful features. 

The following have been mentioned on LLTI or other correspondence; I do not have personal experience with them.