Help adding foreign accents to MS Word

[lesged]

Claudia finally wants to touch a computer keyboard and write emails to her family in France. I have Googled the same question and got some links, but none have worked.

We have only laptops and no right hand numerical keypads. One link claimed that was necessary. I found  3 digit and 4 digit codes for French accents but have had no success applying an accent to a letter. Here is one example:

e (with accent aigue) has forward short slash to above right of "e" with  a code of ALT + 130

Instruction says "hold ALT down and type 130"  It doesn't work on my IBM Think Pad 130 using Windows XP.

Can anyone help to find a way to put the French accents in Word? I don't want to discourage her interest after all these years &  decades, It will greatly appreciated.

Les Gediman

[Justin Smith]

I don't have much occasion to use accents, but maybe this will help until someone posts a better way:

Click the "Start" button, and go to "All Programs" -> "Accessories" -> "System Tools" -> "Character Map". Select your font in the top window, then scroll down to desired character/accent combination and click on it. Press the "select" button, then the "copy" button. You can now paste the character (Ctrl + v) into Word.

Convoluted, but the only way I know.

[Philip]

Les,
     There's no question:  using the Alt key and ASCII numbers is the easiest way to get accented letters unless you have a pre-programmed keyboard.  

     The rule that you press & hold Alt and punch in 130 is for keyboards that have separate keypads; you also have to "turn on" the keypad with the "Num Lock" key. But on (most?) laptops, that separate key pad has disappeared.  I don't know about the IBM Think Pad, but on my Toshiba Satellite, the number keypad is integrated into the main keyboard; in order to "turn it on" you have to press a key labelled something rather different from "Num Lock."  I doubt the ThinkPad uses exactly the same name, but perhaps a person who knows the ThinkPad can tell us.  



.

[radiophoto]

Whenever I've needed to add accents or other grammatical symbols in MS Word, I've clicked on the "insert" tab at the top, and then clicked on "symbol".  What comes up is a table of different letters with accents and doodads going every which way:
 
[FONT='Albertus MT']È, É, Ê, Ë, Å, Æ, and so on.  If you don't like that particular table, there's a drop-down box where you can choose others.  You simply highlight the symbol you want, then click on "insert", then close the box.[/FONT]
 
[FONT='Albertus MT']It can be time-consuming, if you have a lot of them, but it's proved very simple and useful to me in the few times I've had to use them.[/FONT]
 
[FONT='Albertus MT']Pete[/FONT]

[NancyB]

In my version of Word, all you have to do is make sure your cursor is in the spot you want the letter with the accent to appear, then click on "Insert" on the top tool bar, then when you see the little pull-down menu, click on "Symbol". You should now see a list of special characters, and you just have to look for the character you want, then click on the one you want to insert, then click on "Insert", then "Close". That character should appear in the spot you wanted it to. Of course, this is not the latest version of Word that I'm using, it's probably from 2000.
 
Radiophoto, you beat me to it!

[Mike Kovacs]

Try ctrl ' then e for e accent aigu

Try ctrl the other direction ' for accent grave

There are more like circumflex, ctrl u for umlaut

[radiophoto]

Try ctrl ' then e for e accent aigu

Try ctrl the other direction ' for accent grave

There are more like circumflex, ctrl u for umlaut

Yeah, Mike, any American you talk to will know exactly what you're talking about.

[Mike Kovacs]

Here's a more complete list:  http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:ShzCCXKjv80J:language.la.psu.edu/tell/workshops/accents_in_word/index.html+accents+in+word+ctrl&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=firefox-a

If Claudia can write in French, she will know what the accents are called, cowboy!  Hell, I didn't even spell one of them right.  I hated French class.

[martolod]

there is always the old analog solution:

Pen and Paper.....

[radiophoto]

there is always the old analog solution:

Pen and Paper.....

Le stylo et le papier de mon oncle est dans le bureau de mon oncle.

[martolod]

Le stylo et le papier de mon oncle est dans le bureau de mon oncle.

 ahh. mais oui...touche

[radiophoto]

En garde! Touché!  Café au lait!  Champs-Élysées, Eiffel Tower, zut-zut!
 
(thank you, Bugs Bunny)

[Mike Kovacs]

Quebec City - ooh la la

[radiophoto]

Why ain't dem people dancin' the Polonaise?

[Mike Kovacs]

I used a fast shutter speed.  Its not easy taking such photographs while dancing with a line of high kicking moulan rouge girls.