How Do I Type Accents on my Computer?

A Quick and Easy Guide to Writing Accented Characters

Oct 30, 2009

Character entities are encoded letters that are used to type accents in HTML. Writing accented characters requires a basic understanding of how to use character entities.

Online writing is increasingly popular. Blogs, forums and writing sites are all an important part of the mix. The enthusiastic online writer may need to write accented characters, and thus he will need an understanding of HTML character entities.

These entities, or special characters, come in hundreds of different varieties to cover different languages. Whether the writer needs a Spanish tilde or a German umlaut, a basic understanding of how to type accents will help.

The first thing to understand when typing accented characters is that HTML entities only works where HTML is allowed. Some online editing tools do not allow accents, which means that a different approach may be required. Others only allow HTML in the "source" or "advanced" view.

How to Create an Accented Character

The definitive list of HTML entities in the ISO 8879-1 (Latin) character set is found at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Browsers use this set of characters as standard. The first 128 characters include all the standard letters and numbers commonly used in Western Europe; the higher numbers define accented characters and special symbols like ©.

There are other character sets that can cover Chinese, Greek, Russian and other symbols; these are beyond the scope of this article.

The list at W3C is not the easiest for the newcomer, but is included as a definitive list for future reference. The reader should pay particular attention to the second and fourth columns, both of which present a different way to form typed accents. However, she may prefer to use this more visual list.

Two Ways to Type Accents in HTML

As noted above, there are two ways to form an accented character in HTML. The first way is to use the verbal shortcut, which is much easier to remember. For example, the shortcut for ü is ü.

Alternatively, the reader may look up the numeric code for the accented character and type that, instead. In this case, the format for, say, ñ would be ñ. The number is always prefaced by a hash sign ("#").

In both cases, each character starts with an ampersand ("&"). It is followed by either a number or a shortcut like "uuml." It ends with a semi-colon (";").

Note that the code for an capital letter is different from that of a lower-case letter. Ü creates Ü and ü creates ü. Likewise, the upper-case Ñ would be formed with Ñ – note the different code.

What to Do About Accented Characters if the Editor Does Not Allow HTML

Some web-based entry forms, such as those found on forums, may not permit HTML, and thus it may not be possible to type accents at all. In these cases, there are two options to try. The first is to type accents in a word processor using the "Insert Special Character" functions. The accented character can then be copied and pasted.

Another option is to see whether Windows keyboard shortcuts work. Using the numeric keypad, type ALT + [number] where [number] corresponds to the code for the accent. ALT+0233 should correspond to ê. Make sure that number lock is turned on while using the keypad.

Adding accented characters is a little unwieldy, but with practice it quickly becomes second nature.

The copyright of the article How Do I Type Accents on my Computer? in Online Publishing Resources is owned by Linda Gentile. Permission to republish How Do I Type Accents on my Computer? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.