How to Type Spanish Accent Marks When You Are in a Hurry

Actually, if you really need to type Spanish accent marks on a regular basis, then the best thing to do is relax, take a deep breath, and install a Spanish keyboard layout on your computer.

But perhaps you just need to type some words now and then, and you do not want to wrestle with your system configuration (or simply cannot). Then I have two different solutions for you:

1. My “Spanish Accents Generator” bookmarklet

What is a bookmarklet? It is nothing but a regular link that, instead of a web address, contains a little script that does some useful stuff. As it works within the browser, there is no need to download or install anything into your computer.

For example, this link, when clicked, runs a simple and pointless script that asks you your name and then friendly greets you.

The “Spanish Accents Generator Yada-Yada Pro 2007″ bookmarklet (just kidding) will help you to easily get Spanish accent marks (and punctuation marks and symbols), regardless of what kind of keyboard or computer you are using:

Type Spanish Accents

Its usage is very simple:

  1. Click on the above button. A window will appear, asking you to type something.
  2. Type, for example, this: !’No averigu:e’ do’nde esta’ la sen’ora D_a Mari’a O”Donnell! ?’NO SUBIO’ AL 2_o PISO?.
  3. Press Enter or click OK. A new window will pop up containing the same text you typed, but with any apostrophes magically transformed into real Spanish accent marks!
  4. With your mouse, select the resulting text and copy it to the clipboard. You can do it by pressing the key combination CTRL-C (if you are using a PC) or Command-C (if you got a Mac), or by means of the contextual menu (usually right-clicking on the selection).
  5. Paste the copied text wherever you need it (again, with the key combination CTRL-V/Command-V, or making use of the context menu).

These are the codes which are converted into accents or symbols:

Letter/Symbol Code
á a’
Á A’
é e’
É E’
í i’
Í I’
ó o’
Ó O’
ú u’
Ú U’
ü u:
Ü U:
ñ n’
Ñ N’
¡ !’
¿ ?’
ª _a
º _o

Another great advantage of bookmarklets is that, like any other kind of link, you can save them to your “favorites”. That way you will be able to use them again at any time, even when you are not online. Simply drag it onto your favorites/bookmarks toolbar (or right-click on it and select “Add to favorites…”), and that’s all: it’s yours forever!

2. Typing Spanish Accent Marks by means of HTML character codes

In case of emergency, there is a little trick you can use: open your browser, go to any web page, and type the following code into the address bar (replacing the http://www.whatever…):

javascript:'español'

You will get the word “español”, which, again, you can select, copy and paste.

Typing Spanish accent marks using html entities

These are the codes that represent the Spanish accented letters and other symbols:

Letter/Symbol Code
á á
Á Á
é é
É É
í í
Í Í
ó ó
Ó Ó
ú ú
Ú Ú
ü ü
Ü Ü
ñ ñ
Ñ Ñ
¡ ¡
¿ ¿
ª ª
º º

Employing Notepad for longer texts

If you are going to type long texts, I recommend you to use Notepad (or your preferred text editor):

  1. Open Notepad and type the text with HTML codes.
  2. Save it as, say, accents.txt
  3. Rename the file to accents.html (if you use Windows, you may need to configure your pc to show filename extensions).
  4. Double-click the file to open it in your browser.

Tell me

I hope you have found these little tricks useful. Their main advantages are that you can use them on any computer (PC, laptop, Windows, Mac, Linux, or whatever) and that you won’t need to wrestle with your keyboard configuration, word processor, or to memorize obscure “ASCII codes”.

As always, please, feel free to drop any comments. Did the bookmarklet work fine for you? Could it be improved somehow? Do you know other, possibly better, methods? Is my English terrible? 😉

Other resources about typing Spanish accents

17 Comments

  1. becki
    January 9, 2009

    El Tiempo del verano de Nuestras Vidas, Nuestras Vidas

    what does that mean in english?

    Reply
  2. Edu
    January 9, 2009

    becky, I would translate it as: “summer time of our lives, our lives”, How poetic! But “tiempo” can also mean “weather”, so it could be “summer weather”. It depends on what you mean. Cheers!

    Reply
  3. tj
    January 21, 2009

    i really learned a lot thanks

    Reply
  4. tj
    January 21, 2009

    no did doesnt tiempo means time, i am mexican and i know more than you OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  5. Edu
    January 22, 2009

    Yes, “tiempo” generally means “time”, for another meanings read this:

    http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=tiempo

    Of course there can be some minor differences between countries. I am from Spain. 🙂

    Reply
  6. HEY
    January 25, 2009

    thanks this really helped so i could get mi paper done! thanks!!!

    Reply
  7. Edu
    January 25, 2009

    You’re very welcome! Good luck with your paper! 🙂

    Reply
  8. anisah
    August 4, 2010

    how old are you

    Reply
  9. Stacie
    October 23, 2010

    Gracias!

    Reply
  10. Victoria
    January 11, 2012

    thxz Gracias! i love this thing ur helping me get my paper done <3333333333

    Reply
  11. Edu
    January 12, 2012

    You’re very welcome, Victoria! 🙂

    Reply
  12. Donal
    February 29, 2012

    Hola Edu,

    Tengo una problema con mi teclado, quando yo quiero tecliar el accent en mi ordenador yo solo cogo comas. Antes mi ordenador funciona bien con estas symbolos y ahora no! No se que yo puedo hacer!

    Gracias,

    Donal

    Reply
  13. Pablo Terseroz (This name was given to me when working in Mexico City & Guadalahara)
    March 8, 2012

    So, In Fact it is a question of: “Did You Hear Me”,….. But Polite-one!… Are You Listening……are you alive/sombre/normal/fine!?
    But how come the “Tiempo”, in scandinavia, is considered as a Speed,…. meaning…. Higher Tiempo In Music?

    Reply
  14. Pablo Terseroz (This name was given to me when working in Mexico City & Guadalahara)
    March 8, 2012

    Would like to enhange my understanding of all Spanish Speaking Countries, All-Around the World….. As well as better understanding my English.

    Reply
  15. Paul
    July 15, 2015

    The ‘Type Spanish Accents’ bookmarklet didn’t work for me – when I clicked on it I didn’t get the window asking me to type something. I checked my Firefox settings and javascript is enabled. Tnanks for your efforts!

    Reply
    1. eduardo
      July 18, 2015

      Hi, Paul. I tried it with the last version of Firefox for Mac (39), and it works fine. Have you tried with another browser, like Chrome, etc.?

      Reply
  16. Ahmet Fahreddin Uçar
    April 2, 2018

    Guys, why don’t you teach the easiest of all ways to do it? On my Keyboard if I press “Alt+ş” I can type “óíúé” and if I press “Alt+ü” I can type “tilde”: ñ or õ

    Reply

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