Spanish Characters

Go to:

Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Languages > Details

Then select the United States International Keyboard.

Now when you press the symbol then the letter the letter will be accented.

e.g. press ' and then e and you get é

You'll have to get used to using the space bar after you press a quotation mark to make it show up, otherwise it'll wait for the next letter to accent.

Thanks I switched to US international keyboard as you said but what you describe isn't happening for me. This symbol ~ won't go up over the n and I can't get this ' to go over the a or e. Hmmm...

You sure you switched? Is United States International the bold one for your keyboard input language?

You might have just added it and not actually switched. You can switch back and forth between added languages pretty easily (e.g. Left ALT + Shift is the default to switch).

Try removing any other language input and leaving only the US international one.

Craven expalined using the US-International keyboard in a bit extra detail over here, you might wanna check it out if you still can't figure it out after trying what he said above: Tutorial - Foreign Characters and your Keyboard

There's also info about some other ways to do it over here: Guide to typing accents & international characters

Thanks monger, I'd forgotten that I'd done that already.

Well, you can switch to any keyboard layout you please. Unfortunately though, the layout of at least the punctuation will then usually be different from what's shown on your keys (as is obviously the case with the Spanish keyboard layout shown above), unless you actually go out & buy a keyboard made for that layout.

That's the beauty of the 'US-International' keyboard IME. If you already have a US keyboard, all key layout will remain correct, just with new support for accents, etc.

Easy to use matrix
Here's an easy to use matrix by holding down the Alt key and typing on the number pad. Print it out and keep it by your keyboard.

Basic Windows Character Map

Yes Craven that was it. Works fine now.