Typing Accents on my Windows 7 Laptop

This was a big one for me. All the key commands I knew from Windows XP did not work on my laptop, and being a French teacher, I have to be able to type accents! It was easy enough to find key commands that would work in the Office suite, but that still left out anything web-based, because they did not work in a browser. So email, blogging, social networking - I couldn't type my French words! And who had time to figure all this out?!!?

Well, I finally made the time, so I'm sharing what I found here. Maybe it will help someone.

First, you have to enable the international version of the keyboard. That part scared me and I had to read up about it. Anyone who has ever typed on a keyboard in Europe knows what I mean! I didn't want to end up with all my keys scrambled. But you're just adding an option, and it's a US International keyboard, so it's just adding, not scrambling. Whew! Here's how you do that part - Adding the US - International Keyboard in Windows 7.

It will add a little keyboard icon to your taskbar. Click on this keyboard to expand the options and you can choose the US - International (or go back to plain US) any time.

Now, when you're typing anywhere - in any application, or in a browser, you just have to enable your international keyboard. Once you've done that, the key commands are easy! Here they are:



Note that you don't hold down the first key. Type one, then the other. Hope this helps someone.