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How to type French accents on an English US keyboard

Type French accents, ç, œ and capital É on a US keyboard. Compare Mac, Windows and Linux methods, then see how Typeet adds missing letters.

A French email can need é, è, ê, ë, à, â, ç, î, ï, ô, û, ù and œ, plus capitals such as É. You meet them in réunion, français and sœur. A US laptop can type all of them. The choice is how much you want to change your typing habits.

Accents belong on capital letters too. Write École, not Ecole, in finished work. The joined œ in cœur is a separate character, so a method that adds accents to vowels does not cover everything. Less frequent forms include ÿ and æ in a few names and words.

On a Mac

Press and hold, or use Option

Hold a vowel or the letter c and choose the form you need. Use Shift with the letter for the capital menu. Menus are slow for long text and do not work in every app.

On the standard US layout, use these Option shortcuts:

The same accent sequences give à, â, î, ï, ô, û and ù with the matching vowel. For É, enter the acute accent, then type a capital E. Add Shift to Option + C or Option + Q for Ç or Œ. Use Keyboard Viewer to check your layout. Apple's accent guide explains the menu and dead-key methods.

Add an input source or pick a character

Open System Settings → Keyboard → Text Input → Edit and add a French or a Canadian French input source. The traditional French layout uses AZERTY. Canadian layouts have different punctuation, so check which version you choose. Check the active source when you return to English.

Character Viewer inserts letters, but interrupts typing. Unicode Hex Input is another built-in input source: select it, hold Option and enter 0153 for œ. Codes are hard to remember.

On Windows

United States-International and national layouts

In Windows 11, open Settings → Time & language → Language & region. Open your language's options, add a keyboard and pick United States-International. Switch layouts with Windows + Space.

Type ', then e for é; `, then e for è; ^, then e for ê; and ", then e for ë. Apostrophe followed by c gives ç. Use the vowel you need for the other accents. This does not provide a simple dead-key sequence for œ.

Dead keys wait for another character. To enter a literal quote or accent mark, follow that dead key with Space. A French layout gives letters direct positions, but changes US punctuation.

Alt codes and character tools

Hold Alt, type the code on the numeric keypad, then release Alt:

é 0233; è 0232; ê 0234; ë 0235; à 0224; â 0226; ç 0231; î 0238; ï 0239; ô 0244; û 0251; ù 0249; œ 0156; É 0201.

Keep the leading zero and enable Num Lock if needed. These are Windows Western character codes, not universal Unicode shortcuts. The top number row will not work; many laptops lack a number pad.

Search Start for Character Map to copy a letter. The touch keyboard also offers accented choices when you hold a letter on screen; its choices depend on the active layout. Both interrupt typing.

In Word for Windows, type 0153, then press Alt + X for œ. Word also has Insert → Symbol. These methods do not work in every app. Microsoft's character-code guide lists codes and their limits.

On Linux

Add a French layout in GNOME's Keyboard settings or KDE's keyboard layout settings. US international variants keep the main US letters and add dead keys or AltGr combinations. Check the variant's layout display. National layouts move punctuation; dead keys change quotes.

Assign an unused key to Compose in your desktop's keyboard options, then press these keys in order:

Compose, ', e gives é; Compose, `, e gives è; Compose, ^, e gives ê; Compose, ", e gives ë; Compose, ,, c gives ç; Compose, o, e gives œ.

Compose needs setup and several keystrokes per letter. In GTK apps, Ctrl + Shift + U, then 0153 and Enter enters œ. This Unicode method is not universal across Linux apps. Copy letters from GNOME Characters or KDE's KCharSelect if installed. KDE Plasma 6.7 and later can also show a press-and-hold menu when Plasma Keyboard is the virtual keyboard.

Write French with the US layout

Typeet restores missing letters when you finish a word with a space or punctuation. You keep the English US layout and enter the word without its special letters. For example:

You type:

Je serai en retard ce soir, commencez a diner sans moi.

Typeet writes:

Je serai en retard ce soir, commencez à dîner sans moi.

You type:

Samedi, on fete l'anniversaire de ma soeur, tu viens?

Typeet writes:

Samedi, on fête l'anniversaire de ma sœur, tu viens?

It checks French and English word-frequency lists and uses nearby words to choose a spelling. It does not fix typing errors or grammar. Check names and words with several spellings.

On held-out Tatoeba sentences, Typeet added 97.0% of missing letters for French. In that test, 99.3% of all words were correct and 99.99% of English words stayed unchanged. Its list contains 120,553 words. Results vary. A separate test of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo used 109,598 words with the special letters removed and got 98.4% of words right.

Press Backspace immediately after an unwanted fix to undo it. After ten undos of the same word, Typeet leaves that word alone. To switch to another spelling just after a word, press Option + Backspace on Mac or Ctrl + Backspace on Windows and Linux.

Typeet works in mail, Slack, Word, browsers and other apps. Terminals and password managers are excluded by default; exclude more in Settings › Apps. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere. Processing stays on your computer.

Typeet requires macOS 13 or later, Windows 10 or later, or Linux (.deb and .rpm packages, as an IBus input method on Wayland and X11). On Mac it asks for Accessibility permission on first launch. It is free for 14 days, then costs $19 once. Regional prices can be lower.

Questions

How do I type a capital É?

On a US Mac layout, enter Option + E, release both keys, then type Shift + E. On Windows, Alt + 0201 on the number pad gives É.

Can I type œ as oe?

The two characters are different. Use œ for finished French text such as sœur; copy it from Character Viewer or Character Map if you only need it once.

Can I write English in the same message?

Yes. Typeet checks both languages and the sentence. Undo an unwanted fix with Backspace immediately afterward.