How to Put Accent Marks on Letters in Microsoft Word

To put an accent mark on a letter in Word for Windows, press Ctrl plus the accent key, release, then type the letter. Ctrl + ' then e gives é, and Ctrl + Shift + ~ then n gives ñ. In Word for Mac, use the Mac Option keys instead: Option + E, then e.

The Ctrl shortcuts below cover every Spanish, French, German and Portuguese letter. For anything else, use Insert Symbol or the Alt + X trick further down.

Word accent shortcut table

Press the first combination, let go of all keys, then type the letter.

For capitals, press Shift together with the letter in the second step. Ctrl + ', then Shift + E gives É.

Where the keys are

The shortcuts use the symbol that looks like the accent, so they are easy to remember once you find the keys on a US keyboard:

• ' is the apostrophe key, left of Enter.
• ` is the grave key, left of the 1 key.
• ^ is Shift + 6, so the circumflex shortcut is really Ctrl + Shift + 6.
• : is Shift + ; (semicolon).
• ~ is Shift + the grave key.

Special letters

These shortcuts work in Word for Windows and in the Outlook desktop message editor, which uses Word underneath. See accent letters in Outlook. PowerPoint and Excel do not support them reliably; see accent letters in PowerPoint.

Insert Symbol

Insert Symbol has every character in the font, including letters the shortcuts cannot make, such as č, ł or ő.

1. Open the Insert tab and click Symbol, then More Symbols.
2. Set Font to "(normal text)".
3. Pick a Subset such as Latin-1 Supplement or Latin Extended-A.
4. Click the letter and click Insert.

The bottom of the window shows the letter's character code and any shortcut key it already has. Click the Shortcut Key button to assign your own combination to a letter you type often. Recently used symbols also appear in the short list under Insert, then Symbol, so the second time takes one click.

The Alt + X Unicode trick

Every character has a Unicode code. In Word, type the code and press Alt + X: Word replaces the code with the character.

It works in reverse too: put the cursor right after a character and press Alt + X to see its code.

One catch: Word reads hex digits (0 to 9 and a to f) to the left of the cursor. If the code follows a letter such as a, c or e with no space, Word may read the wrong code. Select only the code before pressing Alt + X and it converts correctly.

Alt codes in Word

Windows Alt codes also work in Word. Hold Alt and type the code on the number pad with Num Lock on: Alt + 0233 for é, Alt + 0241 for ñ. The full list is on our Alt codes page, and other system-wide methods are in how to type accent letters on Windows.

AutoCorrect for words you type often

If you type the same accented words every day, let Word add the accents for you.

1. Go to File, Options, Proofing, then AutoCorrect Options.
2. In Replace, type the word without accents, such as cafe.
3. In With, type the correct form, such as café.
4. Click Add, then OK.

From then on Word fixes the word as you type. This works well for names (Zoë, José, Müller) and loanwords (café, cliché, naïve). Avoid words that are also correct without the accent: "resume" is a real English verb, so mapping it to résumé will change sentences where you meant the verb.

Word for Mac

Word for Mac does not have the Ctrl accent shortcuts. Use the Mac's own methods, which work in every app:

• Press and hold the letter, then pick the accent from the menu.
• Press Option + E, then the letter, for an acute accent (é). Option + ` gives a grave, Option + I a circumflex, Option + U an umlaut and Option + N a tilde.
• Use Insert, then Advanced Symbol, for any other character.

The full table is in how to type accent letters on Mac.

Word for the web

Word in a browser has a smaller Insert, then Symbol menu. The desktop Ctrl shortcuts may not work in the browser, so use your system method: Alt codes or Win + . (period) on Windows, Option keys on a Mac.

Troubleshooting

The shortcut types an apostrophe or does nothing. You may have a non-US keyboard layout. On layouts such as UK, French or Spanish, the symbol keys sit in other places and some shortcuts do not fire. Use Alt + X or your layout's own accent keys.

A letter will not take the accent. Word's shortcuts only cover the letters in the tables above. A tilde on e (ẽ), for example, has no shortcut. Use Alt + X with the code instead.

Capitals come out lowercase. Press Shift with the letter, not with the Ctrl combination.

For capitals in other apps and whether they should keep accents, see capital letters with accent marks. If you only need é, è, ê and ë, our short guide to putting an accent on e in Word has every code in one table.