Type French Accents

Type French Accents

Type French Accents : Multi-thousand tips to make your life easier.

Unlike English, French has a very distinct way of typing letters. The accents that make each vowel—and sometimes a consonant—sound different are essential for conveying subtle differences in context and meaning.

Take the word façade, for instance. This word has already been absorbed into English, but the "c" sound is still often written with a "little tail," or cedilla. That mark has not seen much use in American vocabulary. It is fairly difficult to type these characters on most standard English-language keyboards.

Here is how you can type the special characters.

1. If you can get the hang of it, using an international keyboard setting included with the Windows operating system could be a good option. To create the special characters, type the symbol before the letter, and it will automatically transform as you continue typing.

• For example, type ' (the key to the right of the number 1 key) and then the following letter (a, e, or any other vowel) to create an accent grave.
• A cedilla (ç) can be typed by typing a single quote (') and then the letter c.
• The same rule applies to the acute accent (e; type a single quote, then e), the circumflex (e; press Shift+6 for the caret sign, then e), and the trema (ö; press Shift+single quote, then o).

2. If using the international keyboard is not ideal, you can always use Character Map, where you can click and insert whatever special character you need in your document. It would definitely help if you could devise a hotkey system for your purposes.

3. If you will be typing more than your share of French articles, you might be better off getting a French keyboard. This type of keyboard differs greatly from a QWERTY keyboard. For one thing, the top six letters in the left corner spell "AZERTY." The keys for "Q" and "A" have been switched, as have the keys for "W" and "Z." The letter "M" has also been moved to where the ";" (semicolon) sign is normally located. The numbers on top require the shift key because the special characters with the accents are the main characters on the upper row of keys just below the function keys.

4. Then there are the ALT keys. These are special characters you can make without having to buy a special keyboard or familiarize yourself with other conventions. These ALT codes are activated by holding the ALT key while you type the combination on the numeric keypad. As soon as you release the ALT key, the resulting character appears. Here are some of the ALT codes you can use.

a with a grave accent

• Lowercase: ALT + 133
• Uppercase: ALT + 0192

a with circumflex

• Lowercase: ALT + 131
• Uppercase: ALT + 0194

a with trema

• Lowercase: ALT + 132
• Uppercase: ALT + 142

a with ligature

• Lowercase: ALT + 145
• Uppercase: ALT + 146

c with cedilla

• Lowercase: ALT + 135
• Uppercase: ALT + 128

e with acute accent

• Lowercase: ALT + 130
• Uppercase: ALT + 144

e with grave accent

• Lowercase: ALT + 138
• Uppercase: ALT + 0200

e with circumflex

• Lowercase: ALT + 136
• Uppercase: ALT + 0202

Another way would be to use the Character Map utility. It can be accessed by clicking Start, then Run, then typing CHARMAP.exe. You can select and copy the special characters you want to insert into your document, and then paste them in the proper place. It might be tedious to jump between a word processor window and Character Map, though, so the best way would still be to use the keyboard.

It can be quite overwhelming, but with enough practice and everyday use, you will definitely be able to remember which codes correspond to which characters.