Here is how you can easily generate some common international characters on your computer keyboard.
| Character | Macintosh | Windows | Comments |
| á Á | Option-e a (or A) | Control-‘ a (or A) | Acute accent |
| à À | Option-` a (or A) | Control-` a (or A) | Grave accent |
| ä Ä | Option-u a (or A) | Control-Shift-: a (or A) | Umlaut |
| å Å | Option a (or A) | Control-Shift-@ a (or A) | Ring |
| â Â | Option-i a (or A) | Control-Shift-^ a (or A) | Circumflex |
| ã Ã | Option-n a (or A) | Control-Shift-~ a (or A) | Tilde (Virgulilla) |
| æ | Option ‘ | Control-Shift-& a | Ligature (ae) |
| Æ | Option-Shift ‘ | Control-Shift-& A | Ligature (AE) |
| ç | Option c | Control-, c (or C) | Cedilla |
| é É | Option-e e (or E) | Control-‘ e (or E) | Acute accent |
| è È | Option-` e (or E) | Control-` e (or E) | Grave accent |
| ë Ë | Option-u e (or E) | Control-Shift-: e (or E) | Umlaut |
| ê Ê | Option-i e (or E) | Control-Shift-^ e (or E) | Circumflex |
| í Í | Option-e i (or I) | Control-‘ i (or I) | Acute accent |
| ì Ì | Option-` i (or I) | Control-` i (or I) | Grave accent |
| ï Ï | Option-u i (or I) | Control-Shift-: i (or I) | Umlaut |
| î Î | Option-i i (or I) | Control-Shift-^ i (or I) | Circumflex |
| ñ Ñ | Option-n n (or N) | Control-Shift-~ n (or N) | Tilde (Virgulilla) |
| ó Ó | Option-e o (or O) | Control-‘ o (or O) | Acute accent |
| ò Ò | Option-` o (or O) | Control-` o (or O) | Grave accent |
| ö Ö | Option-u o (or O) | Control-Shift-: o (or O) | Umlaut |
| ø Ø | Option o (or O) | Control-/ o (or O) | O-Stroke |
| õ Õ | Option-n o (or O) | Control-Shift-~ o (or O) | Tilde (Virgulilla) |
| ô Ô | Option-i o (or O) | Control-Shift-^ o (or O) | Circumflex |
| œ Œ | Option q | Control-Shift-& o | Ligature (oe) |
| Π| Option-Shift Q | Control-Shift-& O | Ligature (OE) |
| ú Ú | Option-e u (or U) | Control-‘ u (or U) | Acute accent |
| ù Ù | Option-` u (or U) | Control-` u (or U) | Grave accent |
| ü Ü | Option-u u (or U) | Control-Shift-: u (or U) | Umlaut |
| û Û | Option-i u (or U) | Control-Shift-^ u (or U) | Circumflex |
| ÿ Ÿ | Option-u y (or Y) | Control-Shift-: y (or Y) | Umlaut |
And, here are some common symbols you can generate on your keyboard.
| Character | Macintosh | Windows* | Comments |
| ≈ | Option x | Alt-247 | Approximately |
| • | Option 8 | Alt-0149 | Bullet |
| ° | Option-Shift 8 | Alt-0176 | Degree |
| ∆ | Option j | Alt-916 | Delta |
| … | Option ; | Control-Alt-. | Ellipsis |
| ≥ | Option . | Alt-242 | Greater Than or Equals To |
| ∞ | Option 5 | Alt-236 | Infinity |
| ≤ | Option , | Alt-243 | Less Than or Equals To |
| ≠ | Option = | Alt-8800 | Not Equals |
| π | Option p | Alt-227 | Pi |
- For Alt symbols in Windows, hold down the Alt key while typing the digits on the numeric keypad
Hi, David! I enjoy your newsletters — thanks!
This is a great comprehensive list.
Another alternative is to set up the English International keyboard. I am mostly using Spanish — so with the English intl keyboard you can type
~ and then n for ñ,
‘ and then e for é,
really easy to remember.
Also alt ? and ! for ¿ and¡
Also other languages — ” + o for ö, ‘ + c for ç, there are a bunch of them.
I keep my keyboard mostly on Intl — the only drawback is that you need to type ‘ and then space to write just the apostrophe with something like D’Addario. (Without the space you get DÁddario.) Basically if you use a lot of “, ‘, ~ you can toggle to the “normal” keyboard to save writing that extra space.
Thanks, Peter! As for myself, I have come late to the party. Since I started teaching classical music listening courses and writing a few music articles here, I quickly had to learn a better way to type international characters than “cut and paste” or selecting characters from a pull-down table of special characters. Sometimes we Americans can be so insular. It’s an embarrassment, really. Thanks for sharing your approach!