Typing Diacritics and International Characters
Typing Diacritics and International Characters
Tags: Gmail, Google Docs, miscellaneous
A lot of common words and names use what are called “diacritics”—things like accent marks (á), umlauts (ö), or tildes (ñ). But how can you type them in emails and other documents? Follow the instructions below to enable diacritics and international characters on your keyboard for Windows 10 and Windows 11.
For Macs, please see this helpful resource.
Enabling the International Keyboard
The first step is to enable the international keyboard on your computer. The instructions below use Windows 11 screenshots, but the basics should apply to Windows 10 as well. You can also scroll down to watch the video.
1) Go to the search bar in the bottom left corner of your screen and start typing “language.” Select “Language Settings.”
2) In the window that opens, scroll down to “Preferred Languages” and click on “English (United States).”
3) Click “Options.”
4) In the Language Options window that appears, scroll down to the “Keyboards” section and click “Add a keyboard.”
5) Find and select the one that says “United States – International.”
Now you have the new keyboard installed; jump down to see how to switch and type using the international keyboard.
Switching to the International Keyboard
Now that you have more than one keyboard installed on your computer, click on “ENG” next to the date and time in your taskbar and choose “ENG INTL.”
You can also use the keyboard shortcut of Windows + spacebar to switch back and forth between the two keyboards.
Typing with the International Keyboard
Use the chart below to type different combinations of letters and diacritics.
For example, to type an accented e in café, hit the apostrophe button followed by “e.”
Or to type a tilde n in piñata, hit the tilde key (don’t forget to hold the Shift key, too!) and then “n.”