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Accents, Special Characters and Symbols

Some non-English languages, like French, German and Spanish, require certain symbols and diacritics (accent marks) be used in writing (e.g. á, û, ñ, ¿). You do not need to install a special program to insert these into an e-mail message, word processing document or Web page. These characters and symbols are already built into your computer's operating system. All you need to know is the right set of keys to press to produce the desired result. Below are some ways to insert the characters and symbols, which may be slightly different depending upon your operating system and keyboard layout. Choose a method that works best for you.

For Windows PC users

  • The Control (Ctrl) key in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word: Use the Control (Ctrl) key in combination with a letter or symbol to access a variety of special characters and symbols. Visit the PC Accent Marks page for more information.
  • The Alt key and the numeric keypad: Use the Alt key in combination with three digits on the numeric keypad to access a variety of special characters and symbols. Visit the Windows - Alt Key Numeric Codes page [Penn State].
  • The United States-International keyboard layout: Use the right Alt and Shift keys to access a variety of commonly used special characters and symbols. Visit the United States-International Keyboard Layout page for more information. Another resource is the Windows - International Keyboard Codes page [Penn State].

For Mac users

  • The Option key: For a complete list of the special characters and symbols using the Option key, please visit the Macintosh Accent Codes page [Penn State].

For HTML users

 

last reviewed: January 25, 2008