How to type Spanish accents

Ben · 26th March 2006, 04:39 PM

Typing Spanish accents is easy if you have a Spanish keyboard at your fingertips (though many Spaniards don't always bother

).

For other keyboards around the world, there is an explanation of different ways to get the accents here. (Don't worry though, if you leave a few off in this forum we won't mind

)

Firefox Users: Please note that the alt+number method for typing accents does not work with this forum when browsing with Firefox (it's a forum coding thing). We're very sorry about this!

Alan · 26th March 2006, 08:56 PM

Setting up your keyboard to international settings gives a much more natural feeling anyway. AltGr + a = á is much more natural than Alt + 0245. But, if you really want to use the Alt + numbers method, just type your post into Wordpad or something then copy and paste.

I'm using a United Kingdom extended keyboard setting, and the only problem I'm having at the moment is ¿ and ¡. Accents can be typed using AltGr and ` keys (Gàidhlig uses the grave accent). The tilde can be typed using AltGr+~ , THEN n.

Even better, if you're a Windows user, you can set your OWN keyboard layout to suit the languages that you type in. You can set special combinations to allow you to easily or more easily type certain characters. I don't use those curly brackets much, and what is that | key there for anyway? Get some use from them:

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx

Sin · 26th March 2006, 09:55 PM

There's a neat little free utility here. It opens in a small window that's always on top; and it gives you, at hand, all the accented letters.

http://www.braser.com/pr_mk1.html

Marina · 27th March 2006, 07:24 AM

Just out of interest, in Unix or Linux one use | to execute one command over the result of another one (is called pipe) .

Alan · 27th March 2006, 09:07 AM

Yeah

It's also used to create an OR operator in C/C++ as ||

timg · 27th March 2006, 09:17 AM

Under Windows XP you can set your keyboard to have more than 1 layout. I have mine set to UK normally, but I can switch to Spanish layout with a (configurable) combination of keys. It remains as a QWERTY keyboard, but the punctuation keys change to allow you to type the accented characters, the ñ and the ¿¡ characters. Also, under Linux you can use setxkbmap to do the same thing (if you're using a graphical interface such as Gnome).

Alan · 27th March 2006, 09:23 AM

Thanks timg, I needed to do this on my Linux box.

Ben · 27th March 2006, 09:36 AM

And I thought I knew a lot about computers! Respect to the Linux users amongst you!

disco · 28th March 2006, 03:03 PM

Just when I thought I have mastered alt 160 á, 161 í, 162 ó, 163 ú etc, and 164 ñ you guys go and turn me into a techie. Now I have to re-learn and find out the simplest way to type, again.

I am new here, hi all.

Ben · 28th March 2006, 03:19 PM

Welcome!

Mark · 28th March 2006, 11:00 PM

I use a laptop much more often than a desktop, so the ALT keys are difficult to use. I recommend a program called AllChars, available at http://allchars.zwolnet.com

pablo · 19th April 2006, 03:29 AM

In case there are any Mac OS X users out there...

1) Type option-e, then any vowel to make an accented vowel. Type option-n, then any letter (normally n) to get a tilde over it.

- or if you want something a bit less cumbersome while typing -

2) In System Prefs, go to the International Pane. In the Input Menu, check the box by Spanish and/or Spanish ISO. You can now use a shortcut key or simply select the Spanish flag in your menu bar when you want to switch language settings. And if you want to see what the Spanish layout looks like, open the Keyboard Viewer. Or just type until they show up unexpectedly, which can be fun as well.

P.S. And if you want to really have fun, in the International Pane you can also select Spanish as your primary language by dragging it to the top of the list. Then your OS and Cocoa apps (like Text Edit) will have menus and dialog boxes in Spanish. Most importantly, your spell check will be in Spanish as well.

cubix · 19th April 2006, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pablo

P.S. And if you want to really have fun, in the International Pane you can also select Spanish as your primary language by dragging it to the top of the list. Then your OS and Cocoa apps (like Text Edit) will have menus and dialog boxes in Spanish. Most importantly, your spell check will be in Spanish as well.

That's awesome, I find the option key to be very easy to make accents with, a lot easier than on XP(like everything(

gary · 1st May 2006, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cubix

That's awesome, I find the option key to be very easy to make accents with, a lot easier than on XP(like everything(

Dont forget
Option (alt) + 1 to give you the inverted exclamation mark - ¡Hola!

and
Option (alt) + Shift + ? for the inverted question mark - ¿Que?

----once youve had a Mac youll never go back!

Cat · 2nd May 2006, 10:49 PM

Sin,

http://www.braser.com/pr_mk1.html

Thanks for that link...what a fab little program sitting very neatly on screen and so easy to use for a "plug and play" girl. "Linux, Mac etc."...All this complex computer jargon brings me out in a rash! But I'm dead envious of all the techie knowledge displayed..........but I must conquer all things Spanish before moving on to the intricacies of the PC world! There just aren't enough hours in the day.......hey ho !

Andy E · 5th July 2006, 12:34 PM

I'd like to recommend the UK International Keyboard available at the following link:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/pef21/...l/gb_intl.html

If you've ever used the US International Keyboard, it is similar to that with the use of dead keys and I believe it's superior to the UK-Extended Keyboard layout provided by Microsoft. A couple of examples of its ease of use follow:

To type: á you type ' + a
To type: ¿ you hold down the right-hand Alt key and hit the key with the ? on it (no need to use shift).

Andy.

kyle · 5th July 2006, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gary

----once youve had a Mac youll never go back!

and installed GNU/Linux on it, of course :-)

gary · 6th July 2006, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kyle

and installed GNU/Linux on it, of course :-)

sorry - not for a gold pig!

macOS 10.4 does it for me and I get iCal, iWeb, iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie HD, etc, etc, chucked in for the price.

Thats not to say the GNU/Liux Stuff isnt great but why buy a dog and bark yourself?

kyle · 6th July 2006, 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gary

sorry - not for a gold pig!

macOS 10.4 does it for me and I get iCal, iWeb, iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie HD, etc, etc, chucked in for the price.

Thats not to say the GNU/Liux Stuff isnt great but why buy a dog and bark yourself?

I bought my first mac (a powerbook) a couple of years ago. Since I do value quality hardware and IBM had reciently sold Thinkpad to Lenovo I thought Apple would be worth a try. I actually tried OSX for a few weeks but I didn't feel confortable anyway, and I installed ubuntu on it (never tried that particular distro before) and never looked back.

Being a unix guy, mac is ok with all those graphicall apps, but the terminal (or an alternative such as http://iterm.sourceforge.net/ ) isn't up to standars IMHO. I also notice a speed increase when running GNU/Linux (although that might be my perception)

and of course, I'm just lazy to learn a new operating system

kyle · 6th July 2006, 08:08 PM

and getting on topic, keyboard layout in GNU/Linux (at least on intel) is the sanest I've found; we can type almost any sign (or even guess them):

control + alt + c = ©
control + alt + o = Ø
control + alt + s = ß

and of course, we have good "dead keys" combinations (´ ` ^ ¨) and native keys (ñ, ç). The only thing I'm unsure is about the vowels and tildes (I don't write portugese!)

26th March 2006, 04:39 PM	#1
Ben Hero Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,421	How to type Spanish accents Typing Spanish accents is easy if you have a Spanish keyboard at your fingertips (though many Spaniards don't always bother ). For other keyboards around the world, there is an explanation of different ways to get the accents here. (Don't worry though, if you leave a few off in this forum we won't mind ) Firefox Users: Please note that the alt+number method for typing accents does not work with this forum when browsing with Firefox (it's a forum coding thing). We're very sorry about this! __________________ Notes in Spanish: Get The Best Free Spanish-Learning Conversations On The Net!

26th March 2006, 08:56 PM	#2
Alan El Listo ;) Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Scotland Posts: 660	Setting up your keyboard to international settings gives a much more natural feeling anyway. AltGr + a = á is much more natural than Alt + 0245. But, if you really want to use the Alt + numbers method, just type your post into Wordpad or something then copy and paste. I'm using a United Kingdom extended keyboard setting, and the only problem I'm having at the moment is ¿ and ¡. Accents can be typed using AltGr and ` keys (Gàidhlig uses the grave accent). The tilde can be typed using AltGr+~ , THEN n. Even better, if you're a Windows user, you can set your OWN keyboard layout to suit the languages that you type in. You can set special combinations to allow you to easily or more easily type certain characters. I don't use those curly brackets much, and what is that \| key there for anyway? Get some use from them: http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx Last edited by Alan; 26th March 2006 at 10:55 PM.

26th March 2006, 09:55 PM	#3
Sin Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 7	MoreKeys There's a neat little free utility here. It opens in a small window that's always on top; and it gives you, at hand, all the accented letters. http://www.braser.com/pr_mk1.html

27th March 2006, 09:36 AM	#8
Ben Hero Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,421	And I thought I knew a lot about computers! Respect to the Linux users amongst you! __________________ Notes in Spanish: Get The Best Free Spanish-Learning Conversations On The Net!

28th March 2006, 03:03 PM	#9
disco Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Madrid Posts: 6	Thanks a lot! Just when I thought I have mastered alt 160 á, 161 í, 162 ó, 163 ú etc, and 164 ñ you guys go and turn me into a techie. Now I have to re-learn and find out the simplest way to type, again. I am new here, hi all.


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27th March 2006, 07:24 AM	#4
Marina NFS Admin Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Madrid Posts: 1,237	Just out of interest, in Unix or Linux one use \| to execute one command over the result of another one (is called pipe) .

27th March 2006, 09:07 AM	#5
Alan El Listo ;) Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Scotland Posts: 660	Yeah It's also used to create an OR operator in C/C++ as \|\|

27th March 2006, 09:17 AM	#6
timg Mega Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 267	Under Windows XP you can set your keyboard to have more than 1 layout. I have mine set to UK normally, but I can switch to Spanish layout with a (configurable) combination of keys. It remains as a QWERTY keyboard, but the punctuation keys change to allow you to type the accented characters, the ñ and the ¿¡ characters. Also, under Linux you can use setxkbmap to do the same thing (if you're using a graphical interface such as Gnome).

27th March 2006, 09:23 AM	#7
Alan El Listo ;) Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Scotland Posts: 660	Thanks timg, I needed to do this on my Linux box.

28th March 2006, 03:19 PM	#10
Ben Hero Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 4,421	Welcome! __________________ Notes in Spanish: Get The Best Free Spanish-Learning Conversations On The Net!

28th March 2006, 11:00 PM	#11
Mark Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 13	Good utility I use a laptop much more often than a desktop, so the ALT keys are difficult to use. I recommend a program called AllChars, available at http://allchars.zwolnet.com

19th April 2006, 03:29 AM	#12
pablo Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 32	And on a Mac OS X In case there are any Mac OS X users out there... 1) Type option-e, then any vowel to make an accented vowel. Type option-n, then any letter (normally n) to get a tilde over it. - or if you want something a bit less cumbersome while typing - 2) In System Prefs, go to the International Pane. In the Input Menu, check the box by Spanish and/or Spanish ISO. You can now use a shortcut key or simply select the Spanish flag in your menu bar when you want to switch language settings. And if you want to see what the Spanish layout looks like, open the Keyboard Viewer. Or just type until they show up unexpectedly, which can be fun as well. P.S. And if you want to really have fun, in the International Pane you can also select Spanish as your primary language by dragging it to the top of the list. Then your OS and Cocoa apps (like Text Edit) will have menus and dialog boxes in Spanish. Most importantly, your spell check will be in Spanish as well. Last edited by pablo; 19th April 2006 at 03:53 AM.

2nd May 2006, 10:49 PM	#15
Cat Forero Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: South Wales, UK Posts: 22	Sin, http://www.braser.com/pr_mk1.html Thanks for that link...what a fab little program sitting very neatly on screen and so easy to use for a "plug and play" girl. "Linux, Mac etc."...All this complex computer jargon brings me out in a rash! But I'm dead envious of all the techie knowledge displayed..........but I must conquer all things Spanish before moving on to the intricacies of the PC world! There just aren't enough hours in the day.......hey ho !

5th July 2006, 12:34 PM	#16
Andy E Forero Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Portsmouth, England Posts: 24	I'd like to recommend the UK International Keyboard available at the following link: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/pef21/...l/gb_intl.html If you've ever used the US International Keyboard, it is similar to that with the use of dead keys and I believe it's superior to the UK-Extended Keyboard layout provided by Microsoft. A couple of examples of its ease of use follow: To type: á you type ' + a To type: ¿ you hold down the right-hand Alt key and hit the key with the ? on it (no need to use shift). Andy.

6th July 2006, 08:08 PM	#20
kyle Forero Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Madrid, Spain Posts: 36	and getting on topic, keyboard layout in GNU/Linux (at least on intel) is the sanest I've found; we can type almost any sign (or even guess them): control + alt + c = © control + alt + o = Ø control + alt + s = ß and of course, we have good "dead keys" combinations (´ ` ^ ¨) and native keys (ñ, ç). The only thing I'm unsure is about the vowels and tildes (I don't write portugese!) Last edited by kyle; 6th July 2006 at 08:11 PM.

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