It might not happen often, but there will be times when you need to type accented characters like ñ, á, è, or symbols like ∑ and ƒ. For instance, you might be typing a document in another language or working with mathematical symbols. If your keyboard has these accented keys, typing them is as easy as pressing the relevant key. However, if your keyboard doesn’t support accented characters, things get a bit tricky.
But don’t worry, you can still easily type accented characters in Windows in two ways. First, you can access the built-in Character Map tool, which allows you to select and insert special characters manually. Or, for a quicker method, you can use the Quick Accent tool in PowerToys, which lets you type accented characters with just a few key presses.
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through both methods step-by-step to help you type accent characters with ease. Let’s get started.
Type Accented Characters Using Character Map
- Press the Start button.
- Search for “Character Map” and click “Open“.
- Find the accent character you want to type and click it.
- Click the “Select” button.
- Click the “Copy” button.
- Now, press “Ctrl + V” to paste the copied accented character wherever you want.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
Press the Start button to open the Start menu. Search for “Character Map” in the Start menu and click the “Open” option. This will open the Character Map tool.
In the Character Map window, find & select the accented character you want to copy and click the “Select” button. If you need more than one accented character, select it without the mouse pointer and click the “Select” button again.
Once you’ve selected all the accented characters you want, click the “Copy” button to copy them to your clipboard.
Now, you can paste these accented characters wherever you want by pressing the “Ctrl + V” shortcut.
Type Accented Characters Using Quick Accent in PowerToys
Note: You need administrator rights to install PowerToys.
One of the downsides of using the Character Map tool is that it is not easy to find the characters you want to type. If you frequently need to type accented characters, PowerToys Quick Accent is what you need. Using it, you type the accented characters directly instead of finding, copying, and pasting. Let me show you how to use it.
- Get PowerToys from this page.
- Install PowerToys by double-clicking the downloaded installer.
- Search and open PowerToys from the Start menu.
- Go to the “Quick Accent” tab on the sidebar.
- Turn ON the “Enable Quick Accent” toggle.
- Close the PowerToys window.
- To type accented characters, hold down the letter key and press either “Space”, “Left Arrow“, or “Right Arrow” to display a list of relevant accent characters.
- Navigate through the list using the arrow keys while holding the letter key and select the accented character to type it.
Detailed Steps (With Screenshots)
If you haven’t already, you must install PowerToys. To do that, go to this page and download PowerToys. After downloading the installer, double-click it, and follow the on-screen wizard to install PowerToys.
Once PowerToys is installed, open the Start menu, search for “PowerToys” and click “Open” to launch the application.
Next, go to the “Quick Accent” tab on the sidebar and turn ON the “Enable Quick Accent” toggle.
Once the feature is turned ON, you can close the PowerToys window. To type the accented characters, simply hold down the letter key and immediately press either “Space”, “Left Arrow“, or “Right Arrow” to display a list of relevant accent characters. For example, to type ñ, I hold down the “N” key on my keyboard and then press the “Space” key.
While holding the letter key, use your arrow keys to move through characters in the list, and select the one you need. Windows automatically adds the accented character.
That is it, this action will type the accented character of your choice.
Wrapping Up — Typing Accented Characters in Windows 11 & Windows 10
As you can see, if you ever want to type accented characters, you have two methods to use. If your use case is occasional then the Character Map tool is all you need. For example, if you need to type the occasional degree symbol then this method is good enough in most cases. However, if you type these kinds of special characters frequently, you should be using a specialized tool like PowerToys Quick Accent to make your life easy.
If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to help.
