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How to type Spanish accents and ñ on an English keyboard

Type á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ, ü, ¿ and ¡ on an English keyboard. Learn the built-in Mac, Windows and Linux methods and how Typeet restores accents.

Spanish needs á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ and ü, plus ¿ and ¡ at the start of questions and exclamations. These matter in a class assignment and in a message to a colleague. Año and ano are different words, and leaving out an accent can change a verb.

Keep the accent on capitals such as Á and É. The dots in pingüino and the tilde in mañana need different key sequences. Opening punctuation also needs its own method; adding accents to vowels will not insert ¿ or ¡.

On a Mac

Press and hold, or use Option

Hold a vowel or n for accented choices. Hold u for ü. The letter menus do not cover the opening punctuation. Menus are slow for long text and do not work in every app.

On the standard US layout, use these Option shortcuts:

Use Option + E followed by the other vowels for é, í, ó and ú. Type the final letter with Shift for Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ñ or Ü. 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 Spanish or Latin American input source. Spanish and Latin American layouts differ. Both move punctuation away from the US positions. 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 00F1 for ñ. 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.

An apostrophe followed by a vowel gives its acute accent, such as ', then a for á. Type ~, then n for ñ, and ", then u for ü. For the opening marks, press AltGr + / for ¿ and AltGr + 1 for ¡. AltGr is the right Alt key.

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

á 0225; é 0233; í 0237; ó 0243; ú 0250; ñ 0241; ü 0252; ¿ 0191; ¡ 0161; Ñ 0209.

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 00F1, then press Alt + X for ñ. 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 Spanish 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 á; Compose, ~, n gives ñ; Compose, ", u gives ü; Compose, ?, ? gives ¿; Compose, !, ! gives ¡.

Compose needs setup and several keystrokes per letter. In GTK apps, Ctrl + Shift + U, then 00F1 and Enter enters ñ. 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 Spanish 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:

Manana por la manana voy al medico, asi que llegare tarde.

Typeet writes:

Mañana por la mañana voy al médico, así que llegaré tarde.

You type:

Compre pan y leche, pero se me olvido el cafe.

Typeet writes:

Compré pan y leche, pero se me olvidó el café.

It checks Spanish 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 95.1% of missing letters for Spanish. In that test, 98.9% of all words were correct and 100% of English words stayed unchanged. Its list contains 136,933 words. Results vary. A separate test of Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes used 384,288 words with the special letters removed and got 97.4% 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 ñ without a Spanish keyboard?

On a US Mac layout, press Option + N, release, then N. On Windows with US-International, type ~ then N, or press AltGr + N. With a number pad, Alt + 0241 also works.

Does Typeet insert ¿ and ¡ for me?

No. Typeet restores letters inside words, so you type the opening marks yourself with one of the methods above. When you do, they help it pick the accent: ¿que becomes ¿qué.

Can I write English in the same message?

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