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How to type Portuguese accents on an English keyboard

Type ã, õ, ç and Portuguese vowel accents on a US keyboard. Compare built-in Mac, Windows and Linux options with Typeet for everyday writing.

Portuguese uses á, à, â, ã, é, ê, í, ó, ô, õ, ú and ç, with capital forms too. A work message can put several in one line: reunião, amanhã, café. You can enter these on a laptop bought in the US without replacing its physical keyboard.

The tilde in ã and õ differs from an acute or circumflex accent. Ç is a letter with a cedilla, not an accented vowel. Brazilian readers also meet ü in some names and foreign words, although it is no longer part of the usual spelling of words such as linguiça.

On a Mac

Press and hold, or use Option

Hold a, o or another vowel and choose the marked form; hold c for ç. Capital forms use Shift. Menus are slow for long text and do not work in every app.

On the standard US layout, use these Option shortcuts:

Repeat the acute sequence with e, i, o or u. Use the circumflex sequence with e or o for ê and ô. Shift on the final vowel produces the capital; Option + Shift + C gives Ç. 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 Brazilian Portuguese or European Portuguese input source. Brazilian and European layouts differ. Choose the one you know; its punctuation will not match all the printed US keys. 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 00E3 for ã. 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 a or o for ã or õ. Apostrophe then c gives ç. Apostrophe plus a vowel adds an acute accent; backtick adds a grave accent, and ^ adds a circumflex.

Dead keys wait for another character. To enter a literal quote or accent mark, follow that dead key with Space. A Portuguese 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:

ã 0227; õ 0245; ç 0231; á 0225; à 0224; â 0226; é 0233; ê 0234; í 0237; ó 0243; ô 0244; ú 0250; Ã 0195; Õ 0213; Ç 0199.

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 00E3, then press Alt + X for ã. 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 Portuguese 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, , a gives ã; Compose, , o gives õ; Compose, ,, c gives ç; Compose, ', e gives é; Compose, ^, o gives ô.

Compose needs setup and several keystrokes per letter. In GTK apps, Ctrl + Shift + U, then 00E3 and Enter enters ã. 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 Portuguese 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:

Amanha de manha vou ao medico, por isso chego mais tarde.

Typeet writes:

Amanhã de manhã vou ao médico, por isso chego mais tarde.

You type:

Comprei pao e cafe, mas nao trouxe acucar.

Typeet writes:

Comprei pão e café, mas não trouxe açúcar.

It checks Portuguese 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 96.1% of missing letters for Portuguese. In that test, 98.9% of all words were correct and 100% of English words stayed unchanged. Its list contains 115,163 words. Results vary. A separate test of Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis used 66,023 words with the special letters removed and got 97.2% 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 ã and õ on a US Mac?

Press Option + N, release both keys, then type A for ã or O for õ. Use Shift on the final letter for à or Õ.

Do I need a Brazilian ABNT2 keyboard?

You can select a Brazilian layout without changing the hardware, but some keys will not match their labels. US-International can enter the accents while keeping the main US letter positions.

Can I write English in the same message?

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