Do you want to know how to put accents on your laptop? have you been looking for hours for the accent mark on your keyboard? then this article will be of great help to you!
As Spanish speakers, putting accents in our conversations is elementary. They are part of our everyday dialogue. But there are times when we are working with an international keyboard, or possibly with a bad configuration, which can prevent us from typing the words and phrases with the accents we need.
Even if you are working with a Spanish keyboard, it is a good idea to know how to set accents manually. Remember that spelling rules are elementary in a good text.
Majo Moiron, comments that “the construction of a narrative is like that of a house: the architecture of the story is designed with time and work”. So, learning how to put a tilde on the keyboard is key to develop quality texts .
According to the Royal Spanish Academy, “the accent is the greater intensity with which a word is pronounced within a phonic group”. There are two types of accents: the prosodic accent, which is pronounced on the tonic syllable, and the orthographic accent, which is placed on the vowel of the tonic syllable, and therefore, is the one we are interested in in this case.
In this article, we will explain how to set accents on your laptop, whether it has a Spanish or international keyboard. This way, you will be able to type fast, without spending time looking for how to put accents and, thus, increase your productivity to the maximum. shall we start?
how to set accents with a Spanish keyboard?
Let’s start with the basics. if you live in a Spanish-speaking country, your PC keyboard has a key to insert accents. if you are not sure how to set accents on your keyboard, here is how to do it.
On a Spanish-speaking keyboard, next to the keyboard for the letter “ñ”, there is a key to insert accents. It looks like this:
Source: Orange
If you press that key, nothing will appear on the screen. But this action means that the keyboard is waiting for you to press the next key to accentuate the letter. To illustrate this, let’s consider the letter “ó”. The first key we will press is ” ‘ ” followed by “o” to produce “ó”. That is:
‘ + o = ó
This is the fastest and most efficient way to put an accent. But if your keyboard doesn’t have this, there are other ways to insert these characters. read on!
how to set accents with international keyboards?
Now that you know how to put an accent with a Spanish keyboard, let’s look at another alternative, using some keyboard shortcuts.
Every keyboard has the “alt” key. this key allows you to insert accents if your keyboard does not have a special key for this purpose.
To put an accent with the “alt” key, all you have to do is hold it and then type a combination of numbers. For example, if I want to accentuate the letter “é”, the combination is as follows:
ALT (hold down) + 130 (combination of numbers) = é
There are different combinations for all letters with accents:
ALT + 129 = ü
ALT + 130 = é
ALT + 160 = á
ALT + 161 = í
ALT + 162 = ó
ALT + 163 = ú
ALT + 0193 = Á
ALT + 0201 = É
ALT + 0205 = Í
ALT + 0211 = Ó
ALT + 0218 = Ú
ALT + 0220 = Ü
how to insert other characters with the keyboard?
In addition to this, if your keyboard does not have the “ñ” key or the inverse question mark “¿” and exclamation mark “¡”, there are also combinations to insert them:
ALT + 164 = ñ
ALT + 165 = Ñ
ALT + 168 = ¿
ALT + 173 = ¡
Now that you know how to set accents with your keyboard, it is time to show you how to ensure that the settings are in English.
how to change the language of your keyboard?
If you have the misfortune of having to deal with a keyboard that is not set to the language in which you want to type, the solution is quite simple. Take note of the steps to change the keyboard language, depending on your operating system
Add language in Windows
In Windows, follow these steps to change the language of your keyboard:
1) Click on system preferences.
Source: Windows
2) If the Spanish language is installed, click on it.
Source: Windows
3) If not, choose “add a language”.
4) Find the language you want to add in the list.
5) Double click on it.
6) Select this language as the default.
7) Verify in the desktop on the lower right side which language is selected. The language is displayed as an abbreviation. For example: Spanish (ESP).
Source: Windows
and it’s that easy! You already learned how to change the language of your keyboard and how to set accents on your PC.
Add language in macOS
In macOS, follow these steps to change your keyboard language:
1) Click on the flag icon in the top right corner of your desktop.
Source: macOS
2) If you already have the English language set, it should appear here. If you want to select it, just click on the icon.
3) If you need to add the language, click down to the bottom of the drop-down menu where it says keyboard preferences.
Source: macOS
4) On the left side you should see flag icons representing each language. If the language you want is not there, click on the “+” symbol.
Source: macOS
5) Find the language you want to add in the list and click on it.
6) Then, just select it from the list of default languages.
Source: macOS
Bonus track: show on-screen keyboard
There is one last option that we have not yet told you about that, although it is not specifically for putting accents on the laptop nor is it the most comfortable, it can be useful for urgent cases. it is to enable the on-screen keyboard.
But how to set accents on your laptop through the virtual keyboard? Very simple, the keyboard will be configured with your preferred language. So, even if you have a keyboard without the tilde key, you will be able to see a keyboard with tilde and ñ on the screen .
how to activate the on-screen keyboard in Windows?
Windows offers two types of on-screen keyboards: a basic one that is activated from the taskbar and a more advanced one that is enabled from the configuration tool.
To activate the latter, i.e. the advanced Accessibility keyboard, follow the steps below:
1. Enter the configuration tool from the Start button.
2. Enter the Accessibility > Keyboard menu and enable the on-screen keyboard.
According to Microsoft’s support page, this option “displays a visual keyboard with standard keys and you can use your mouse or other pointing device to select keys, or use a physical key or group of keys to cycle through the keys on the screen.”
To activate the basic keyboard and find out how to set accents on your laptop, the steps are very simple:
1. Right-click on the taskbar and enable the Show Touch Keyboard button option.
2. Click on the keyboard button that will appear on the taskbar and the keyboard will be displayed.
Source: MuyComputerPro
In the latter case, you will find yourself with 4 types of on-screen keyboard:
Standard keyboard: this is the default layout and is like a standard external keyboard, but a bit more compact.
Narrow layout keyboard: it is designed to replicate the phone. It hides less of the screen while you work and supports swipe typing.
Handwritingpad: Write on the pad with your stylus or finger to write text.
Expanded standard keyboard: This layout most closely resembles a standard external keyboard. It is full-featured and includes a wide selection of keys, and will be most useful for setting accents on the laptop .
how to activate the on-screen keyboard on Mac?
For Mac, it is also possible to activate an on-screen keyboard with a tilde. how to do it? It’s very easy:
Go to System Preferences and click on the Keyboard option.
Go to the box that says “Show keyboard and character displays in the menu bar” and select it. A new keyboard icon appears in the menu bar.
Click on that icon and then click on “Show keyboard viewer”; a keyboard will appear on the screen in the foreground, with which you will be able to put accents on a laptop very easily.
So, let’s take a brief look at how to set accents on your laptop:
Directly from the accent key.
Supporting us with the “alt” key + a combination of numbers.
Setting the language on the keyboard.
And, if none of these options work or you need a quicker solution, you can always activate the on-screen keyboard.
that’s it! Now that you know how to set accents on your laptop and have a better understanding of how the keyboard works, you can venture into Word and other tools without fear of getting your grammar wrong. You won’t have to deal with misconfigured keyboards or keyboards that don’t have your language, you now know how to set accents on your PC or Mac.
Best of luck.