Jun 29, 2019 You can type in Spanish on Microsoft Windows machines—complete with accented letters and inverted punctuation —even if you're using a keyboard that shows English characters only. There are essentially three approaches to typing Spanish in Windows. These days, Word has an ‘autodetect’ feature which should figure out which language is being typed and change the dictionary. But sometimes it doesn’t work or you want a specific language variant (e.g. Spanish (Spain) or Spanish (Mexico) instead of Spanish (US) ). Feb 20, 2020 The editing language—which governs spelling, grammar, and word sorting—can be changed in the Word Options screen. Go to the Choose Editing Languages section, and select a language from the list. If the language isn't listed, select the Add additional editing languages drop-down arrow and choose a language. Apr 29, 2017 Translate Word 2016 Documents from a Foreign to your Native Language. Before we begin, note that you’ll need to be connected to the internet for the translation service to work.
As you've seen, there are special characters used in the Spanish language that aren't used in English.
Sometimes the special character is an accent mark above a letter like this á. Or, the special character could be the waved line above the n that looks like this ñ, and changes the n sound so it sounds like the 'ny' letter combination in the English word canyon. And you'll remember that when you use a question mark or exclaimation mark in Spanish, there is also a ¿ or a ¡ character at the beginning of the sentence.
In this lesson you'll learn what these special characters are, and how to work with the special characters, especially on the computer. You'll learn how to enter the special Spanish characters with your keyboard. And you'll learn to enter the special Spanish characters in any program you use on your computer.
Why do I need to use the special Spanish characters?
Even if you have no plans to do professional Spanish translation, or type Spanish books into your computer, you'll still want to be able to type the special Spanish characters into your computer. You'll need them when you send an email to a Spanish speaking friend, or post a message in Spanish to a Spanish Chat Room, or use an online Spanish forum.
The question sometimes comes up, 'Do I really have to use the special Spanish characters at all?' After all, the letters look very similar, and won't I be understood if I just use regular characters? And the answer is, Yes, you really need to use the Spanish special characters. They're an important part of the language and they make it much easier for others to understand what you've written in Spanish.
When you see these special characters, a common question is 'How do I enter the special characters for the Spanish language on my computer keyboard?' There are several different ways of entering special Spanish characters on the computer keyboard. Most word processing programs allow you to change the special keyboard layouts specifically designed for the Spanish language. This is a very good feature to have for extended Spanish word processing such as writing a book in Spanish or doing Spanish translation services.
The Best Method for Entering Special Spanish Characters
So which is the best method for entering special Spanish characters into the computer programs I use? The most reliable way to enter the special Spanish characters is to use the keyboard to directly enter the key-codes by holding down the 'ALT' key while entering the 3 or 4 digit number for the letter you want to type.
This method works best because it works on all programs -- It works in your favorite word processor and it works in Microsoft Notepad, and Microsoft Word. This method works just as well in your favorite Web-based email program like Yahoo mail, Hotmail, or Gmail.
Listed below is a table of the special Spanish characters you need and all the character code numbers that you will enter as you hold down the 'ALT' key on your keyboard. There is also a table of special characters using the ampersand character. Be sure to experiment with you computer system to find the codes that work best. If you'd like, you can print this page and keep it near your computer for a handy reference.
Letter / Character | Keyboard Keys |
---|---|
á | á |
é | é |
í | í |
ó | ó |
ú | ú |
Á | Á |
É | É |
Í | Í |
Ñ | Ñ |
Ó | Ó |
Ú | Ú |
ü | ü |
¿ | ¿ |
¡ | ¡ |
Letter / Character | Keyboard Code |
---|---|
á | 160 |
é | 130 |
í | 161 |
ó | 162 |
ú | 163 |
Á | 0193 |
É | 144 |
Í | 0205 |
Ñ | 165 |
Ó | 0211 |
Ú | 0218 |
ü | 0252 |
¿ | 168 |
¡ | 173 |
If you want to translate a word document from one language to another language, Microsoft Word can help because of free translator feature in Microsoft Word.
Now let’s see how translator feature help to translate Word document. For example, how to free translate word document from English to Spanish.
Step 1: Enable translation in Microsoft Word 2010.
To enable translation in Word, under the Review tab, simple click on the Translate button and select translate option.
Step 2: Select Translate Document or Translate Selected text, or choose to translate with the Mini Translator. Now we select “Translate Document”.
Step 3: In Translation Language Options window, choose Mini Translator language and choose document translation languages. Click OK.
When there is a message popping up to ask whether you want to translate whole document over the Internet in unencrypted HTML format, if you want to continue, click Send.
Ms Word Spanish Accents
Then you would get new document in another language on new opening web page. You can copy it to save as new word document.
Ms Word Spanish Characters
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