Here’s a handy trick for those of you learning Spanish. If you’re finding it puzzling writing those Spanish accents, upside down question and exclamation marks – such as á, é, í, ó, ú, ü, ñ, ¿, and ¡ – we have the solution.
Those Fiddly Alt keys . . .
It is possible using a standard UK keyboard but involves a lot of messing about with ALT keys and numbers. For example: á = Alt + 0225 and Á = Alt + 0193.
If you’re using Microsoft Office it’s slightly easier: For accented vowels, press Ctrl + then the vowel you want to accent. For the Spanish ñ, press Ctrl + ~ then the n key. It’s more fiddly for the exclamation and question marks though:
- To type ¡ press AltGr, Shift and !
- To type ¿, press AltGr, Shift and ?
¡No te apures! There’s a simpler solution.
Spanish Accents Capslock is a neat app that provides a quick way to type those accented characters. Once installed – which only takes a moment – you hold down capslock and press a to type á. It’s intuitive that you just need to hold shift and a to type Á. To prevent the accidental activation of CapsLock when typing, you just hit the CapsLock key twice in rapid succession to turn the app on and off. Or, even easier, add a shortcut to it on your Taskbar so that you can turn it on and off with just a click
It’s very clever, there is no need to copy and paste or remember those complex key strokes and/or number codes.
The download is certified virus free so you can be assured it’s safe. And there’s more – if you’re learning German, Mandarin or Italian there’s a download for you too. Plus, in Beta, a French version.
Download it here.