I've been asked how you type accented letters and special characters when writing emails etc. You know the kind of thing, you're writing to Andre not André just because there's no "é" key on your keyboard.
This method is best for just the odd character in an email etc. and will work in most text editing programs including email, DTP and office suites. If you wish to write whole pages of, for example, French you would be better off purchasing a French keyboard and telling windows to use that. It is quite simple to add the odd character, but first you have to know the code for the character you require:
To look up the character code you will need a list of all characters and their codes. In Windows (as far as I recall all versions from 3.1 on, possibly earlier versions too but I have no experience of them) there is an installable option called "Character Map" which will tell you the code number for all the characters in the fonts installed on your system. You may have to install it if you don't already have it "on board", if someone asks then I'll write up how to install it for Windows 95/98, XP and Vista as a separate article. If installed it should be listed in Accessories / System Tools from the Start menu. If searching the computer to see if it's there charmap.exe is the file name.
To use Character Map to look for the character you want to use, if you hover your cursor over the character you think it is a small info window will open by the cursor with details. If that is the correct character then left click on it and it will be highlighted and all the relevant data for it will be shown. The picture shows the Times New Roman font with the e acute highlighted in the XP version of Character Map, with the full info at the bottom of the window. (In Character Map you can select the character you want by clicking on it, then click the Select button, then click the COPY button to copy the character to the clip board, then return to your document and Paste the character in your text. Personally I find this tiresome and, using the Tip at the bottom, along with the method I describe, you will not have to leave the keyboard).
Most conventional fonts, Arial, Courier & Times New Roman to name just 3 and a lot of "home brewed" fonts that include the accented letters and special characters, follow the same Unicode layout so the code, for example, for a lower case e with an acute accent is 0233 in almost all fonts that support that character (it should be all fonts that support that character but there are probably some that don't!).
To add the letter into your email, DTP or office suite document (this method is compatible with most Windows programs) all you need to do is:
As you release the ALT key the character will appear in your document just as any other letter you type does. Easy isn't it? Below I've supplied a table of commonly used accents and other special characters that can't be "just typed".
TIP: Are you are always using the same special character(s) in your writings but have to look it up all the time? Just jot the characters and their codes on a piece of paper or Post-It note and stick somewhere close so you can easily refer to it.
| Here are a few Commonly Used Characters Not all fonts will be 100% compatible with this list but it does give you an idea of what's available. | ||
| Character Name | Character (shown larger for clarity) |
Left "ALT" + |
|---|---|---|
| euro symbol (some PCs / keyboards will give the euro by holding the left ALT and CTRL keys and typing the number 4) |
€ | 0128 |
| capital letter s with caron |
Š | 0138 |
| small letter s with caron |
š | 0154 |
| cent symbol | ¢ | 0162 |
| yen symbol (yuan symbol) |
¥ | 0165 |
| copyright symbol | © | 0169 |
| registered (trade mark) | ® | 0174 |
| degree symbol | ° | 0176 |
| micro symbol | µ | 0181 |
| one quarter fraction | ¼ | 0188 |
| one half fraction | ½ | 0189 |
| three quarters fraction | ¾ | 0190 |
| capital letter C with cedilla |
Ç | 0199 |
| capital letter E with grave |
È | 0200 |
| capital letter E with acute |
É | 0201 |
| capital letter O with stroke |
Ø | 0216 |
| small letter a with grave |
à | 0224 |
| small letter a with acute |
á | 0225 |
| small letter c with cedilla |
ç | 0231 |
| small letter e with grave |
è | 0232 |
| small letter e with acute |
é | 0233 |
| small letter i with grave |
ì | 0236 |
| small letter i with acute |
í | 0237 |
| small letter o with grave |
ò | 0242 |
| small letter o with acute |
ó | 0243 |
| small letter o with circumflex |
ô | 0244 |