Accents, etc. on Windows and Apple computers

Putting accents on vowels and making special characters such as Ñ and ü on a Windows machine can be a royal a pain! But that doesn't mean you want to go out and buy a Mac because on Macs, making these characters has been consistent and fairly easy to do for the last 15 years.

First, print these tables, cut them out and tape them to your computer or somewhere nearby. To make the characters, hold the Alt key while you type the numbers under each character. Enjoy!

Accent A E I O U
Acute
(Cap)
Á
0193
É
0201
Í
0205
Ó
0211
Ú
0218
Acute (Lower) á
0225
é
0233
í
0237
ó
0243
ú
0250
Tilde
(Cap)
-- -- Ñ
0209
-- --
Umlaut
(Cap)
        Ü
0220
Umlaut (Lower)         ü
0252
Symbol Name Code number
¡
Upside-down exclamation mark 0161
¿ Upside-down question mark 0191
Ç, ç French/Catalan C cedille (caps/lowecase) 0199
0231
« » Spanish/French quotation marks 0187
0171

Example: To input the acute a á (0225), hold down the ALT key, type 0225 on the numeric keypad, then release the ALT key.

On an Apple

Hold the "Option" key together with the "e." Let them go and then type any vowel and you'll get an accented vowel. For accented capital vvowels, hold the "Option" key together with the "e," let them go and then hit shift and a vowel.

For the "ñ", hold the "Option" key together with the "n." Let go and click "n" again and you get ñ.

For the upside down question mark, hold the "Option" key together with the "Shift" key and the "?" key. For the upside down question mark hold the "Option" key together with the "!" key.