Accent Marks • Using Diacriticals in Desktop Publishing

An accent mark is a mark or addition to some characters to denote a specific pronounciation.

Accent marks or diacriticals are rare in English but are a common occurrence in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other languages. Some of the more commonly seen accent marks include acute, cedilla, circumflex, grave, tilde, and umlaut or diaeresis^*. Many "Americanized" foreign words may be found written with or without their accent marks, such as cafe, naive, or facade (café, naïve, façade).

^{* See page 2 for clarification on umlaut vs. diaeresis for differences that are not reflected in the accompanying chart and graphics.}

Examples of Diacriticals

é Acute
ç Cedilla
â Circumflex
è Grave
ñ Tilde
ü Umlaut/Diaeresis

Keystrokes for Mac and PC
When using a standard English keyboard and fonts it is necessary to use special characters or keystroke combinations in order to apply accent marks. The basic keystroke combinations are:

• Mac Option plus a key or key combination — Opt+e, a for á

• Windows ALT plus a numeric code — ALT+0225 for á

• HTML Ampersand plus character code followed by a semi-colon — á for á

I've put together a simple table of diacriticals showing the Mac, Windows, and HTML codes for the six common accent marks encountered in English text. This table also appears at the end of this page.

Designing with Diacriticals
These rules apply especially to US designers and others designing in English for a predominantly English-speaking audience.

• Italicize foreign words or phrases. Include the accent mark when your text includes foreign words, proper names, or common English words that are normally accented.

• Be consistent. If you start out using accents, continue to do so throughout the document.

• Pay attention to the available special characters in the digital typefaces you choose. Not all fonts contain these characters.

• You may want to use a larger typesize for body text or experiment with different faces to find a font where the accent marks don't appear to merge into the accented letters or show up as little "smudges."

More About Accent Marks and Languages

French Language
"It is essential to put accents in their proper places - an incorrect or missing accent is a spelling mistake just as an incorrect or missing letter would be. The only exception to this is capital letters, which are often left unaccented." — Learn how to pronounce accented characters and all about reading, writing, and speaking French.

Spanish Language
"Typing accented characters using either a Microsoft Windows-based or Macintosh computer isn't all that difficult. But it isn't intuitive." — Includes step-by-step instructions on how to add accented characters under Windows or on a Mac as well as lessons in learning Spanish.

German Language
This special character chart for German describes which accented characters are most common in that language and how to type them. Also see German Language Dictionaries to find a dictionary online to translate between English and German plus other resources for reading, writing, and speaking German including "Wir chatten... über Deutsch und auf deutsch!" (German Chat).

Italian Language
Use this chart to find the accented characters most often used in Italian and how to type them.

Character	Mac	Windows	HTML	Character	Mac	Windows	HTML
Acute [resumé]				Umlaut [naïve]
Á á É é Í í Ó ó Ú ú Ý ý	Opt + e, A Opt + e, a Opt + e, E Opt + e, e Opt + e, I Opt + e, i Opt + e, O Opt + e, o Opt + e, U Opt + e, u Opt + e, Y Opt + e, y	ALT + 0193 ALT + 0225 ALT + 0201 ALT + 0233 ALT + 0205 ALT + 0237 ALT + 0211 ALT + 0243 ALT + 0218 ALT + 0250 ALT + 0221 ALT + 0253	Á á É é Í í Ó ó Ú ú Ý ý	Ä ä Ë ë Ï ï Ö ö Ü ü Ÿ ÿ	Opt + u, A Opt + u, a Opt + u, E Opt + u, e Opt + u, I Opt + u, i Opt + u, O Opt + u, o Opt + u, U Opt + u, u Opt + u, Y Opt + u, y	ALT + 0196 ALT + 0228 ALT + 0203 ALT + 0235 ALT + 0207 ALT + 0239 ALT + 0214 ALT + 0246 ALT + 0220 ALT + 0252 ALT + 0159 ALT + 0255	Ä ä Ë ë Ï ï Ö ö Ü ü Ÿ ÿ
Grave [voilà]				Circumflex [château]
À à È è Ì ì Ò ò Ù ù	Opt + `, A Opt + `, a Opt + `, E Opt + `, e Opt + `, I Opt + `, i Opt + `, O Opt + `, o Opt + `, U Opt + `, u	ALT + 0192 ALT + 0224 ALT + 0200 ALT + 0232 ALT + 0204 ALT + 0236 ALT + 0210 ALT + 0242 ALT + 0217 ALT + 0249	À à È è Ì ì Ò ò Ù ù	Â â Ê ê Î î Ô ô Û û	Opt + i, A Opt + i, a Opt + i, E Opt + i, e Opt + i, I Opt + i, i Opt + i, O Opt + i, o Opt + i, U Opt + i, u	ALT + 0194 ALT + 0226 ALT + 0202 ALT + 0234 ALT + 0206 ALT + 0238 ALT + 0212 ALT + 0244 ALT + 0219 ALT + 0251	Â â Ê ê Î î Ô ô Û û
Tilde [mañana]				Cedilla [façade]
à ã Ñ ñ Õ õ	Opt + n, A Opt + n, a Opt + n, N Opt + n, n Opt + n, O Opt + n, o	ALT + 0195 ALT + 0227 ALT + 0209 ALT + 0241 ALT + 0213 ALT + 0245	à ã Ñ ñ Õ õ	Ç ç	Opt + Shft, C Opt + c	ALT + 0199 ALT + 0231	Ç ç

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