adding Spanish accents in MS Word?

[buffalo]

I have to type a short paper for my spanish class (in Spanish). Is there any way to type accents as needed?


Thanks

 

[WildCowboy]

I don't use accents all that much, so I don't have the shortcuts memorized. So here's how I do it...I go to Insert --> Symbol. Using the (normal text) font, all of the special characters should be there. I leave that window open off to the side while I type away on my document, inserting appropriate characters from the Symbol window as needed. This could get pretty awkward though if you need a lot of diacritical marks.

Once you learn the shortcuts for the diacritical marks (typically Option plus something that makes some sense for the mark), you can move faster.

 

[dejo]

Option-n, n gives you ñ.

Option-e, e gives you é.

Option-u, u gives you ü.

Option-i, i gives you î.

Option-~, a gives you à.

That's just a few. For more, the best way to learn your choices is to use the Keyboard Viewer, available in the International setting of System Preferences, Input Menu tab. Make sure you have Keyboard Viewer checked in the top and "Show input menu in menu bar" at the bottom. Then you can click-and-hold the new input-menu in the menu-bar and access Keyboard Viewer.

 

[buffalo]

OK, I'm probably doing something stupid, but when I do Option + N, all I get is the tilda (is that what it's called?). No letter. The same thing happens with all the accents.

 

[WildCowboy]

Yes, then you have to type the appropriate letter...a given diacritical mark can appear over multiple letters. You just have to tell it which one you want...it'll do the right thing. Hence dejo's remarks..."Option + u" gives you the umlaut, and the "u" puts a u underneath it.

 

[buffalo]

Yes, then you have to type the appropriate letter...a given diacritical mark can appear over multiple letters. You just have to tell it which one you want...it'll do the right thing. Hence dejo's remarks..."Option + u" gives you the umlaut, and the "u" puts a u underneath it.

Got it. I missed that part. This is just what I needed.

Thanks WildCowboy and dejo!

 

[xsedrinam]

Got it. I missed that part. This is just what I needed.

Thanks WildCowboy and dejo!

Okay, looks like you're on your way. The Option+e will give you a tilde over any of the vowels, as needed. For ex. (ó) by typing Opt+e, then type the letter. Suerte.

 

[superbovine]

you enable the spanish keyboard under the preferences and internaltional settings. it a bit faster than trying to remember the accent keys, but then again you have to know the spanish keyboard. i am not on my mac now so, i can't give you exact instructions.

 

[mkrishnan]

Okay, looks like you're on your way. The Option+e will give you a tilde over any of the vowels, as needed. For ex. (ó) by typing Opt+e, then type the letter. Suerte.

Most of the diacritical marks, whether or not they apply to Spanish, work this way -- that is, following the option-xxx, to make the accent, you can use any character that can receive this mark. So for instance, the umlaut can go on ü, ï, ë, ö, etc... it's all the same -- opt-u, u; opt-u, i; etc. ç is an exception because it only appears (AFAIK) on c's. So it is just opt-c. The trick to remembering this is that each accent mark is tied to the character with which it most commonly appears, except for the è, which is tied to the key that has that accent mark on it.

Also of note for Spanish is that you can can get the character "¿" by option-shift-?. And you can get «» by opt-\ and opt-shift-\.

 

[buffalo]

for fun here's 15 sentences about 1st grade using the imperfect past tense

El primer grado de Wilson era muy divertido. Yo tenía siete años y era alto y inteligente. Mi profesora se llamaba Señora Wakefield. Ella era vieja pero amable. Muchas veces la clase iba afuera. Jugaba partidos con mis amigos. Mi amigo mejor se llamaba Tim. Él era cómico y atlético. A veces jugábamos fútbol y a veces jugábamos fútbol americano. La sala de clase era grande y tenía unos computadoras, escritorios, y una pizarra. Había veinte compañeros en la clase. Nosotros aprendíamos cómo escribir y leer. Después de almuerzo era matemáticas. La era aburrido porque era fácil. Mi clase favorito era ciencia porque la era interesante. Mi primer grado fue emocionante.

 

[adrian-cg]

for fun here's 15 sentences about 1st grade using the imperfect tense

El primer grado de Wilson era muy divertido. Yo tenía siete años y era alto y inteligente. Mi profesora se llamaba Señora Wakefield. Ella era vieja pero amable. Muchas veces la clase iba afuera. Jugaba partidos con mis amigos. Mi amigo mejor se llamaba Tim. Él era cómico y atlético. A veces jugábamos fútbol y a veces jugábamos fútbol americano. La sala de clase era grande y tenía unos computadoras, escritorios, y una pizarra. Había veinte compañeros en la clase. Nosotros aprendíamos cómo escribir y leer. Después de almuerzo era matemáticas. La era aburrido porque era fácil. Mi clase favorito era ciencia porque la era interesante. Mi primer grado fue emocionante.

Spanish's my first language, I'll give you a hand here, pretty good so far, some minor mistakes here and there

El primer grado de Wilson fue (I know this isn't imperfect tense but era sounds funny) muy divertido. Yo tenía siete años y era alto e* inteligente. Mi profesora era la Señora Wakefield. Ella era vieja pero amable. Muchas veces la clase tenía lugar afuera. Jugaba partidos con mis amigos. Mi mejor amigo se llamaba Tim. Él era cómico y atlético. A veces jugábamos fútbol y a veces fútbol americano. El salón de clases** era grande y tenía unas computadoras, unos escritorios y un pizarrón. Había veinte compañeros en la clase. Aprendíamos a leer y a escribir. Después del almuerzo teníamos matemáticas. Esta clase era aburrida porque era fácil. Mi clase favorita era ciendias porque era interesante. Mi primer grado fue emocionante.

*when the word after "y" starts with an i you write e instead of y.
** sala de clase is good too but sounds kinda rough, at least for the way we speak in Mexico

Also what do you mean by "la era aburrida"? I just changed it so it would be correct.

I feel useful now, lol. Good luck with your assignment.

 

[buffalo]

*when the word after "y" starts with an i you write e instead of y.

I haven't learned that yet, but I'll keep that in mind for the future

sala de clase is good too but sounds kinda rough, at least for the way we speak in Mexico

I didn't know how to say classroom so I looked it up and that's what I got.

Also what do you mean by "la era aburrida"? I just changed it so it would be correct.

I was trying to say, "it was boring". Tried putting the direct object in front of the verb. Is it different in the imperfect tense?

Thanks for the help. I wish I had seen your corrections before I turned it in though. It would've been due tomorrow, but since I'm leaving town tomorrow and won't be at school, it was due today.

 

[buffalo]

Thanks for the help. I wish I had seen your corrections before I turned it in though. It would've been due tomorrow, but since I'm leaving town tomorrow and won't be at school, it was due today.[/QUOTE]

Heck, my teacher did say she wanted to see what I knew, not the native spanish speaker, so it's fine.

 

[Queso]

As an aside, have you worked out how to do the ¡ and ¿ characters?

Option + 1 = ¡

Option + Shift + / = ¿

¡Hasta la proxima!

BTW, you Americanos speak Castillian funny. All this yo, nosotros, ella etc. doesn't get used in Spain unless you're emphasising who is doing an action. Sort of like, "No, I'll do the shopping".

 

[buffalo]

BTW, you Americanos speak Castillian funny. All this yo, nosotros, ella etc. doesn't get used in Spain unless you're emphasising who is doing an action. Sort of like, "No, I'll do the shopping".

We've been taught that the yo, nosotros... is optional and usually do not use it (although we don't do much conversational spanish), but I decided to add them to this to be be "proper."

 

[sandy10003]

adding Spanish Accents in MS word

Thanks for the clear explanation. This was very helpful.

Option-n, n gives you ñ.

Option-e, e gives you é.

Option-u, u gives you ü.

Option-i, i gives you î.

Option-~, a gives you à.

That's just a few. For more, the best way to learn your choices is to use the Keyboard Viewer, available in the International setting of System Preferences, Input Menu tab. Make sure you have Keyboard Viewer checked in the top and "Show input menu in menu bar" at the bottom. Then you can click-and-hold the new input-menu in the menu-bar and access Keyboard Viewer.