How to type Accented Spanish Letters on Keyboard (ñ á é í ó ú ü) - How to Type Anything (2024)

Accents on Spanish letters are diacritical marks that are used to indicate stress or a different pronunciation. The accent marks on Spanish letters are primarily used to change the sound or pronunciation of the letter.

This guide will teach you how to type Accented Spanish characters on a Mac or Windows PC keyboard.

There are different methods for typing these accents for different documents depending on the Operating System you are using. You’ll pick up each of these techniques in no time.

Let’s get started.

Type Accented Spanish Letters using Alt Code (Windows)

To type letters with Spanish accent marks, press and hold the alt key, then type the accented Spanish letter alt code as below:

• To type Spanish Ñ (Uppercase N Tilde), Press Alt + 165
• To type Spanish ñ (Lowercase n tilde), Press Alt + 164
• To type Spanish Á (Uppercase A Acute), Press Alt + 0193
• To type Spanish á (Lowercase a acute), Press Alt + 0225
• To type Spanish É (Uppercase E Acute), Press Alt + 0201
• To type Spanish é (Lowercase e acute), Press Alt + 0233
• To type Spanish Í (Uppercase I Acute), Press Alt + 0205
• To type Spanish í (Lowercase i acute), Press Alt + 0237
• To type Spanish Ó (Uppercase O Acute), Press Alt + 0211
• To type Spanish ó (Lowercase o acute), Press Alt + 0243
• To type Spanish Ú (Uppercase U Acute), Press Alt + 0218
• To type Spanish ú (Lowercase u acute), Press Alt + 0250
• To type Spanish Ü (Uppercase U Umlaut), Press Alt + 0220
• To type Spanish ü (Lowercase u umlaut), Press Alt + 0252

The table below lists all of the alternate characters for each of the letters with Spanish accent marks – both lowercase and uppercase (i.e., small and capital letters).

Below is a step-by-step guide to type any of these accent letters in Spanish with the help of the alt codes in the above table.

• To begin, open the document in which you want to type the letters with Spanish accent marks. It could be Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or even in your web browser.
• Press the Num Lock key to turn it on. In other words, make certain that the numeric keypad’s keys are not disabled.
• Hold down the Alt key and type the alt code of the Spanish character you want to type using the numeric keypad. The table above contains the alt codes for the various Accented Spanish Letters.
• Now release the Alt key after typing the alt code with the numeric keypad.

NOTE: This option is only for Windows users. To type Accented Spanish Letters on Mac, refer to the next option.

Related: Online Spanish Keyboard to type Spanish Letters and Symbols

How to Type Letters with Spanish Accent Marks on Mac (Shortcut)

A keyboard shortcut is the quickest way to type Accented Spanish Letters on a Mac.

Each letter with a Spanish Accent mark (á é ó ü) has its own unique shortcut. They all, however, use a very similar keystroke pattern.

Let’s look at how to type any of these characters on a Mac using keyboard shortcuts.

To use the Mac Keyboard shortcuts in the above table:

• First open the document that will contain the character.
• Simultaneously press and release Option + N, then press the letter n to make the Spanish n with a tilde accent.
• The same way, to make the other acute accent marks, simultaneously press Option + N, then press once on the a, i, e, or u.
• As for the u umlaut, press Option + U, then hit once on the u key.

Note: If you want to type uppercase letters with the Spanish accent marks on Mac, use the above hotkeys whilst your caps lock key is turned on.

For more options on how to type these characters specifically in Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, refer to the remaining sections below.

Insert Spanish Characters with Accents in Word

NOTE: As shown already, using Option 1 (Alt code for Windows) and Option 2 (shortcut for Mac), you can easily type Spanish Letters with Accents in Word. However, you can continue reading below if you want to learn more methods about how to insert these characters specifically into your Word document.

In addition to the alt code method, there are two other ways to insert the Spanish accent letters marks in Microsoft Word. The first method involved using the insert symbol dialog box, while the second method involved using a keyboard shortcut that only works in Word.

Let’s explore these options one after the other.

Using Insert Symbol dialog

To insert the Spanish accent Letters using the insert symbol dialog box, obey the following instructions:

• Open up your Word document and place the cursor where you want to insert the letters with the Spanish accent marks.
• On the Insert tab, go to Symbols > Symbol > More Symbols.

• The Symbol dialog box will appear. Select Latin-1 Supplement from the “Subset:” drop-down list. This will display all the symbols under this category including lowercase and uppercase Accented Spanish Letters.

• Locate the accented letter you wish to insert and double-click on it. Alternatively, click to select your desired Accented Spanish Letters and click on the Insert button to insert it into your document.

• Close the dialog.

These are the steps you may use to insert these symbols in Word using the Insert Symbol dialog box.

Using keyboard shortcut for Word

Each of the Spanish accented letters has its own set of keystrokes. These keystrokes or shortcut keys are only designed to function in Microsoft Word. Thus, if you want to type these symbols in a program other than Word, look into the other options in this post.

Below are the various shortcuts to type Accented Spanish Letters in Microsoft Word:

• To type ñ (Spanish n with a Tilde), press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [~], then n.
• To type á (a with Spanish Accent), press [Ctrl] + [‘ apostrophe] then a.
• To type é (e with Spanish acute), press [Ctrl] + [‘ apostrophe] then e.
• To type í (i with Spanish Acute), press [Ctrl] + [‘ apostrophe] then i.
• To type ó (o with Spanish Acute), press [Ctrl] + [‘ apostrophe] then o.
• To type ú (u with Spanish Accent), press [Ctrl] + [‘ apostrophe] then u.
• To type ü (u with umlaut), press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[; semicolon] then u.

NOTE: These keystrokes will give you Lowercase Letters with Spanish Accent marks. However, if you want uppercase characters, turn on the caps lock whilst typing the shortcuts.

These are the shortcuts for typing these characters in Microsoft Word.

Insert Letters with Spanish Accent Mark in Excel

If you are using a Windows PC, you can easily type any letter with the Spanish Accent mark in Excel. Mac users can also use the shortcuts stated in section two of this tutorial.

However, if you are looking for another way to achieve this specifically in Microsoft Excel, the steps below will show you.

To insert Accent on Spanish letters in Excel:

• Launch Excel.
• Select the cell that will contain the character.
• On the Insert tab, click on the Symbols drop-down button and select Symbol from the list.

• The Symbols Dialog box will appear. From the “Subset:” drop down list, select Latin-1 Supplement. All the symbols under this group will appear including all lowercase and uppercase Accented Spanish Letters.

• Click to select the particular Spanish Accented Letters you want to insert, then click on the Insert button. Alternatively, double click on the symbol to insert it into your Excel document.

These are all the steps needed to insert any of the Spanish letters with accents on top.

Insert Spanish Accented Letters in PowerPoint

Just like on Microsoft Word and Excel, you can use the Spanish Letters with Accents alt code to type them into your PowerPoint document.

However, if you want another way to perform this task, keep exploring below.

To insert Spanish Letters with accents in PowerPoint:

• Open your PowerPoint document.
• Place the insertion pointer on the slide you need the character.
• Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon.

• Click on the Symbols button to launch the Symbol dialog box.

• The Symbol dialog box will appear. From the “Subset” drop-down list, select Latin-1 Supplement. You should see all the Spanish accented characters under this category of symbols.

• Select the the particular accented letter you wish to insert and click on the Insert button. Otherwise, just double-click on the symbol you want to insert into your PowerPoint document.

• Close the dialog.

These are the steps you need to be able to insert the Letters with Spanish Accent marks in Microsoft PowerPoint using the Insert symbol dialog.

Copy and Paste Accented Spanish Letters

Another easy way you can get the Accented Spanish Letters on any PC (whether Windows or Mac) is to use my favorite method:copy and paste.

All you have to do is to copy the symbol from somewhere like a web page or the character map for windows users, and head over to where you need the symbol (say in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint), then hit Ctrl+V to paste.

Below are the Accented Spanish Letters for you to copy and paste into your Word document. Just select your desired symbol and press Ctrl+C to copy, switch over to your document, place your insertion pointer at the desired place, and press Ctrl+V to paste.

ñ

á

é

í

ó

ú

ü

You can also use the Character Map to copy and paste any symbol or character on Windows. It contains every symbol or character you can think of. Obey the following instructions on how to use the Character Map on any Windows PC.

• Click on theStartbutton and search for Character Map. The Character Map app will appear in the search results, click on it to open.

• The Character Map dialog will appear.
• Select the Accented Spanish Letters you want by double-clicking on it, it should appear in theCharacter to copy:field, then click on theCopybutton to copy the symbol.

• Switch to your document where you want to paste the copied symbol, place the insertion pointer at the desired location and press Ctrl+V to paste.

This is how you may use the Character Map dialog to copy and paste any symbol on Windows PC.

Conclusion

Among all these several options to type the Spanish Letters with accent marks, I think using the alt code method for Windows is the fastest option, provided you know the alt code for that particular symbol you want to type. If you happen to use the accent letters in Spanish often, you can consider making a cheat sheet for your reference.

Using the keyboard shortcut to type Spanish Characters is also a handy method for Mac users. However, you can also use a mouse-based approach if you are inserting these symbols in any of the Office programs like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.