Hi everyone,
I was wondering how people get round typing accents on a non-Portuguese keyboard. Up until now I’ve tended to copy accented characters from elsewhere and paste them into my text, because I can never be bothered with ALT codes.
However, today I discovered a free app called Autohotkey, which works fine with Windows 10. It allows you to write small scripts that automate tasks, and after learning how to use it for a couple of hours, I managed to write simple codes to add accents to letters.
So now I have the following shortcuts:
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Left arrow + letter = an acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú)
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Right arrow + letter = a grave accent (à)
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Up arrow + letter = a circumflex (â, ê, ô)
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Down arrow + letter = a cedilha (ç)
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Alt + letter = a tilde (ã, õ)
It works for capitals too! (À, É, Ó)
The only downside I’ve found so far is that the arrows no longer work as arrows for scrolling up and down text, or moving left and right along a line. However, the arrows on the number pad still allow me to scroll.
If anyone is interested in trying it out or finding out more, I’ll happily share the code, just let me know. I’d also like to hear about any other work-arounds other people are using! 
Jeremy
Update
I’ve made another system using hotkeys that I like better:
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Letter then "1 "adds an acute accent
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Letter then “2” adds a circumflex
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Letter then “3” adds a grave accent
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Letter then “4” adds a tilde
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Letter then “5” adds a cedilha
This system means you don’t have to hold keys down, you just type them in sequence. Also you type the letter first, then think about which accent to add, which seems more logical to me. And the arrows now keep their proper function, too
