Typing Spanish characters - how?

[Roy MacLean]

(Probably a dumb question, but...) How do people type Spanish text (accents, upside-down question marks, etc) in messages such as these? Is there an easy way to flip between English and Spanish text?

thank
/Roy

[Jan]

There are several methods - this is the one I use for adding a virtual spanish keyboard to my UK laptop:

Start>Settings>Control Panel>Keyboard>Language.
Click Add and select Spanish (Traditional)

The Spanish keyboard will be added to your keyboard list on the bar at the bottom of the screen (should show "En" normally). Click on that to select the Spanish Keyboard ES (which will always be available from then on in a drop down list).

Then for
tildas type ' plus the vowel (á, í etc)
¿, use shift and type +
¡, type =
ñ, type ;

To see what the Spanish keyboard layout looks like,

CLICK HERE Click the shift on this keyboard to see different accent placings. Note that this page may take some time to open.

Here is a link to an online site where you can then copy and paste your text . Bit more awkward than the first option though. typeit

Hope this helps
Jan

[Matthew]

Hi Roy,

I'm Matthew, the teacher on the Spanish Language Site videos. I haven't seen you before, so welcome to our Forum.

To answer your question: it is a tricky one, and there is no really easy answer. You can do one of the following:

1) Go to the Control Panel - regional and language options - languages - details, and add the Spanish keyboard. This means that the colon button on the right of your keyboard becomes the ñ, etc. This involves learning a whole new keyboard, however.

2) Open up Microsoft Word, and insert the relevant letters from the Symbols tab, and then copy and paste them.

3) Learn the ASCII code for the symbols. Go here http://www.accentcodes.com/ for a list.

They're all a bit of a faff, though, but until you get a Spanish keyboard, it's the best you can do!

Good luck!

Matt

[Felipe]

In Windows XP go to .... Start - Control Panel - Regional and Language options - select languages tab- select details button- click Add button and from the drop down menu (input Language) select Spanish (traditional-sort) - click OK button....when you have done this select -Language Bar button and set it for 'show Language bar on the desktop' then click - OK button then click the - 'Apply ' button' then click the - 'Key Settings- button and you can select your hotkeys - click 'OK' to finish.... You will see on the bottom tool bar on the right the Language EN for english and for Spanish ( click the icon to change)

Accents are this key ( ' ) + the vowel
tilde ñ is ( ; ) key
( + ) is ¿
( = ) is ¡