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:
Left arrow + letter = an acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú)
Right arrow + letter = a grave accent (à)
Up arrow + letter = a circumflex (â, ê, ô)
Down arrow + letter = a cedilha (ç)
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:
Letter then "1 "adds an acute accent
Letter then “2” adds a circumflex
Letter then “3” adds a grave accent
Letter then “4” adds a tilde
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
On a MacBook Pro running OS 10.14.5 I can select Keyboard Preferences from System Preferences > Input Sources and upload a Portuguese keyboard. Then I can easily swap from British keyboard to Portuguese and vice-versa and show a keyboard viewer on screen to use for the Portuguese. I have no idea if Windows 10 has something similar.
Yes, you can load other keyboards in Windows, and view a touch keyboard, but to access accented characters you either have to click on the touch keyboard, which means using the mouse, slowing things down a lot and cluttering up the screen with a floating window, or memorise where the accents are and deal with the fact that some of the punctuation doesn’t correspond with the keys on a UK keyboard.
Using hotkeys you can keep the keyboard you’re used to and type accents directly from the keyboard without faffing around with a mouse
Hi Jeremy. I am super happy with a free download called ‘AX’ (http://vulpeculox.net/ax/). They also explain that a virus warning pops up since AX hugs your keyboard like a trojan apparently. I have been using it for over a year without any issues except for any restarts to the system when you will need to set the language to ‘Portuguese’ again, in the dialogue box that pops up for language settings. All you have to do is toggle between various accents by pressing F8 when on the letter (e.g. i you want the cidilla on c, just press F8 and the accent will appear on the ‘c’ automatically (like so …ç … i just did it!). The same applies for caps.
Hope that helps.
On Windows, with a numeric keypad, the following works.
Hold the alt key down, and then on the numeric keypad, type the 4 numbers listed below. Then release the alt key. This will insert the character in question. I keep a cheat sheet in front of me while typing, and have memorized most of the ‘chords’. But then again, I always was an emacs guy
À 0192
à 0224
Á 0193
á 0225
à 0195
ã 0227
 0194
â 0226
É 0201
é 0233
Ê 0202
ê 0234
Í 0205
í 0237
Ó 0211
ó 0243
Ô 0212
ô 0244
Õ 0213
õ 0245
Ú 0218
ú 0250
Ç 0119
ç 0231
€ 0128
« 0171
» 0187
— 8212
‒ 8210
Hi everyone,
I’ve added the Portuguese keyboard to windows 10, so now I just switch between the English and Portuguese keyboard layouts as needed. It takes a little getting used to initially as you need to remember where the accents are etc., but I’ve found it to be such a time saver now that I’m used to it. Here’s a YouTube link showing you how it’s done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2brLeGFqQ8. Also, this link shows you what the Portuguese layout looks like, which may be useful: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Portuguese.svg. Hope it helps.
Adding to this - In addition to the unicode character method, I’ve now set up PT as a second language on the Win10 machine.
Settings -> Time & Language -> Language -> Preferred Languages
Add Portuguese (Portugal)
Then in the Settings search bar, enter ‘Advanced’ and select Advanced Keyboard Settings. From there, select Language Bar Options, and then on the Language Bar tab, select Docked in the taskbar.
This will put a ‘POR’ option in addition to the ENG (for me) option in the taskbar. Now I can easily switch between keyboard layouts; either with o rato, or Left Alt + Shift (see the ‘Advanced Key Settings’ in the same advanced window).
To see the virtual keyboard, type: winkey+ctrl+o - this brings up the on-screen keyboard in the current lang setting.
I use a really nice Windows program (which is free) called WinCompose. It adds what’s called a “compose” key (default is the right Alt key) to the keyboard, and everything else then becomes really intuitive.
Eg, to type é you press the compose key, followed by apostrophe, followed by e. To type ç you press the compose key followed by comma followed by c. For ê it’s compose, ^, e. For ã it’s compose, ~, a. For à it’s compose, ` (which is normally in the top left corner of the keyboard), then a.
There are thousands more combinations, for all sorts of languages, but those are the ones I mostly use. They’re quite intuitive. Comma for a cedilla, apostrophe for an acute accent, etc etc.
I use a free programme called holdkey - once it is downloaded you can use it in any programme, you just press and hold the letter you want to add an accent to, a little screen pops up with all the options and you just press the number corresponding and the accented letter is added …
and best of all ? it’s free!
Apologies for ressurecting an old thread, but after having tried some of the tips above, it seems to me the easiest (by far) option on a Windows machine is to simply install a Portuguese keyboard layout:
Settings → Time & Language → Language & Region → Add a language
This adds a little language indicator in the tool bar showing the currently selected keyboard layout, e.g. ENG. To switch between different layouts, click on that indicator and select what language you want to switch the keyboard to.
The accents are now on the two dead-keys right next to the enter key.
A “dead key” is a key that doesn’t result in any character appearing the moment you press it. It does however impact the output from the next key you press.
For instance, on a Portuguese keyboard layout the key next to “enter” doesn’t result in a letter being typed. That’s the dead part. However, if you first press that key, let go, and then the normal letter ‘a’, you get ã. If you press “shift” while pressing that same key, let go, and then the normal letter ‘a’, you get â.
It is different from e.g. the “shift” key in that you don’t need to hold the “dead key” down while pressing the character you want to change.
On my Windows PC, I use the Quick Accent Utility, which is a part of Windows PowerToys, a free download from Microsoft. Once it’s enabled you can type an accent or other diacritical mark by pressing the letter you want accented, then right-arrow to select the mark you want. For example: If you want “à”, press and hold the [A] key and press the [Right-arrow] key.
Adding my penny worth rather late. In windows I just use insert symbol. It works really well if you are in a document (2 clicks) but not elsewhere, like here for example.
