Keyboard Shortcuts

If you can manage to remember them or don’t mind always having a cheat sheet nearby, striking certain keys together is a quick and easy way to write letters with accents. As you can see in the table below, Windows users need to hold down Alt while pressing a few numbers. Use your keypad when doing this, not the numbers along the top row. Things are a tad different on a Mac. If we take Á as an example, you can see that you must first hold the Option key down and then press e. The comma you see means to depress completely (remove all fingers from the keyboard). Then, continue with the rest of the directions; in this case, you’d type Shift+a. Another way to use this tool is through a virtual keyboard. It works in Chrome through the Google Input Tools extension. Or, visit Google Input Tools and select Special Characters from the right side. Otherwise, if you’re using Google Input Tools, choose something, and then close the special characters box.

Google Docs Add-ons

There are add-ons compatible with Google Docs built specifically for making it easy to import accented letters.

Use Your Computer’s Built-in Method

Another way to type accented letters is to find them in Character Map in Windows or the on-screen keyboard in macOS. Both are similar to Google Input Tools, but they’re built-in to the operating system—no download required.