How it works
This page lists 77 characters: all 69 accented and extra letters in code page 1252, plus eight marks such as ¿ and «. Filter by letter or by one of five languages, then read a character's codes. The Alt codes work on Windows only and the Option keys on a Mac with the ABC layout only, which is why any character here can also be selected and copied.
Read the full guide
Pick a letter or a language
Press a letter group or a language over the table. The table then shows every character of that group, each with its name, code point, Alt codes, Option keys and HTML code. French shows all 34. The search box finds a row by name, by code or by the character itself, and Show all 77 characters opens every row. Spanish letters copy and paste well, since each is a single code point. Tap a character or its name to copy the character, and tap a code to copy the code. Copy copies the large character at the top.
Three digits or four
Most alt codes for letters come in two kinds. Three digits, such as Alt+130, read from code page 437, the character set of the first PCs. Four digits, such as Alt+0233, read from code page 1252, and the zero counts. All 77 characters have a four-digit code and only 40 have a short one. Take the e alt codes: é is Alt+130 and É is Alt+144, but È, Ê and Ë exist only with four digits.
Print one language or the whole table
Print this table, beside the search box, prints the table alone: all 77 rows, or only the rows a language, a letter or a search leaves showing. The other 244 characters that have Alt codes, from box drawing to card suits, are on the full Alt codes list.
Tips
- The Spanish accent alt codes sit in one run: á 160, í 161, ó 162, ú 163, ñ 164, Ñ 165, ª 166, º 167 and ¿ 168. Latin small letter e with acute sits apart at Alt+130.
- German alt codes are the easy set: ä 132, ö 148, ü 129, Ä 142, Ö 153, Ü 154 and Latin small letter sharp s at Alt+225. Only the quotation marks „ and “ need four digits.
- Portuguese is the hard set. Code page 437 has no ã or õ, so Latin small letter a with tilde is Alt+0227 and õ is Alt+0245. Under code page 850, Alt+198 and Alt+228 type them too.
- The o alt codes split in two. Alt+149, Alt+162, Alt+147 and Alt+148 type ò, ó, ô and ö, while õ and Latin small letter o with stroke need four digits.
Questions and answers
Why does É have a short code when Á does not?
Code page 437 had 128 slots above ASCII to share between letters, Greek, math and box drawing. It gave 34 to accented and extra letters, and only eight of those to capitals: Ç, Ä, Å, É, Æ, Ö, Ü and Ñ. The u alt codes show the gap: ù, ú, û and ü all have short codes, and of the four capitals only Ü does, Alt+154.
What are the Spanish accents alt codes for capitals?
É is Alt+144, Ñ is Alt+165 and Ü is Alt+154. The other four need four digits: Á Alt+0193, Í Alt+0205, Ó Alt+0211 and Ú Alt+0218. The inverted marks are short, ¿ at Alt+168 and ¡ at Alt+173. That is the whole set: Wikipedia's article on Spanish orthography records only the acute accent on vowels, the tilde on ñ and the diaeresis in güe and güi.
Why did my code type a Greek letter?
You left out the zero. Alt+0233 types é, and Alt+233 types Greek capital letter theta, because three digits read a different character set. The four-digit code is the safer one to memorise. Also check that Num Lock is on and that the digits come from the number pad.
How do the Option keys work?
On a Mac with the ABC layout, five dead keys carry the accents: Option+E acute, Option+` grave, Option+I circumflex, Option+N tilde and Option+U diaeresis. Press the pair, let go, then type the letter, with Shift for a capital. The tilde combines with a, n and o only. Ten characters here have no sequence: ý, š, ž, ð, þ and their capitals. Holding a letter down opens an accent menu, though not in all apps.
Is there an Alt code for a capital ß?
No. Wikipedia's article on German orthography records that the capital, ẞ, became an official letter on 29 June 2017. Its code point is U+1E9E, far outside both code pages, so no code on this page reaches it.