Spanish Keyboard

How to type Spanish accents with this keyboard

There are three ways to type Spanish characters here. Use whichever feels quickest:

1. Click or tap the blue accent buttons above the keyboard. Hold Shift while clicking (or press Shift on the on-screen keyboard first) for capitals such as Á or Ñ.
2. Alt shortcuts: hold Alt (Option on a Mac) and press the letter. Alt+A gives á, Alt+N gives ñ, and pressing Alt+U twice gives ü. Alt+? types ¿ and Alt+! types ¡.
3. Quick codes: switch on quick codes and type a letter followed by a symbol: a' → á, u" → ü, n~ → ñ, ?? → ¿, !! → ¡. Handy if you type fast and don't want to reach for the mouse.

Used to a keyboard from Spain? Click Type as if on a Spanish keyboard under the keyboard. Your keys then type like one bought in Spain: ñ sits next to L, and the ´ key adds an accent to the next vowel. Press Esc to go back to normal typing. The other buttons above the keyboard give the Spanish quotation marks « » and “ ”, the dialogue dash — and the euro sign €.

When you're done, press Copy and paste the text into WhatsApp, an email, a document, a form or a search box. Accents are ordinary characters, so they paste anywhere.

Spanish keyboard layout (Spain)

Keyboards sold in Spain use this layout, which Windows calls Spanish and macOS calls Spanish - ISO. The small letter on each key is the US key in the same place, and the blue symbols are typed with AltGr (the right Alt key).

• ñ has its own key right of L, where the US keyboard has the semicolon. Shift gives Ñ.
• Two accent keys, both "dead" keys that wait for the next letter: ´ (¨ on Shift) next to ñ, and ` (^ on Shift) right of P. Press ´ then a for á, or Shift+´ then u for ü. Press the accent key and then the space bar to type the accent on its own.
• ¡ and ¿ share the last key of the number row, next to Backspace (¿ on Shift), so questions are easy to open. The key between 0 and it has the apostrophe, with ? on Shift.
• ç gets a key right of +, for Catalan and French words. º and ª (the ordinal marks in 1.º and 1.ª) sit on the key left of 1.
• Symbols move. @ is AltGr+2, # is AltGr+3, € is AltGr+E or AltGr+5, and the brackets [ ] { } are on AltGr with the keys right of P and ñ. Parentheses are on 8 and 9.

Latin American keyboard layout

Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and the rest of Spanish-speaking America use a different layout, which Windows calls Spanish (Latin America) and macOS Latin American. The letters and ñ are in the same places as in Spain; the differences are in the symbols:

• ¿ and ¡ swap places: the last key of the number row gives ¿ without Shift and ¡ with it, the opposite of Spain. The apostrophe and ? are on the key before it, as in Spain.
• One accent key: ´ (¨ on Shift) is right of P, where Spain has `. There is no grave accent key, because Spanish never uses one.
• Brackets are plain keys: { and [ right of ñ, } and ] on the key above Enter.
• @ is AltGr+Q, ~ is AltGr++, and there is no ç key. The key left of 1 gives | and ° instead of º and ª.

If you set up a Spanish keyboard on your own computer, pick the one that matches the keyboard you learned on; the letters and accents work the same either way.

Spanish accents and special characters

Spanish uses only a handful of special characters. Here is each one, with an example and the codes to type it elsewhere. The Windows codes need the number pad with Num Lock on, and the Mac ones are two keystrokes: the Option combination first, then the letter.

Spanish accents always lean to the right (á, never à). The only other mark is the diaeresis on ü. If you see à, è or ç in a Spanish text, it is a Catalan, French or Portuguese word.

When do Spanish words take an accent?

The written accent (tilde) shows which syllable is stressed when the word breaks the default rule. Spanish words fall into three groups:

Accents that tell words apart

Some one-syllable words take a tilde diacrítica only to distinguish them from a word that is spelled the same:

• Question and exclamation words always carry the accent: qué, cómo, dónde, cuándo, quién, cuál, cuánto, por qué. The same words without it are relatives or conjunctions: Dime qué quieres but Lo que quieras.
• ü is only used in güe and güi, to show the u is pronounced: pingüino, vergüenza, bilingüe. Compare guerra, where the u is silent.
• ñ is its own letter, not an n with decoration: año (year) and ano mean very different things, and ñ comes after n in the dictionary.
• Capitals keep their accents: Ángel, Óscar, ÁFRICA. Leaving them off is a typewriter habit, not a rule.

Spanish punctuation: ¿ ¡ « » and the raya

The opening marks go exactly where the question or exclamation starts, which may be in the middle of a sentence: Si llueve, ¿qué hacemos?. All of them are on the buttons above the keyboard.

Common Spanish words and how to type them

Each phrase with its meaning and the keys to press on this page, using the Alt shortcuts (Option on a Mac). Plain letters are typed as usual.

How to type Spanish accents on your own computer or phone

For a few words, this page is the quickest. If you write Spanish every day, set up one of these once and it works in every app.

Frequently asked questions