All of these shortcuts require you to press ‘Option’ plus some other character, which will display a preview of the accent this particular key combo creates.įinally, press the key that most closely resembles the accented character you want to type.
Try pressing the key in question again, and the accent menu should appear without any problems.Īlternatively, you can type the accented version of various characters using keyboard shortcuts. Make sure the ‘Key Repeat’ slider is set to the ‘Off’ position.Select ‘System Preferences > Keyboard.’.Click the ‘Apple’ icon in your Mac’s toolbar.To check whether key repeat is enabled on your Mac: The key repeat option overrides the accented character menu, so if you hold down the ‘a’ key you’ll wind up with aaaaaaaa rather than à.
It’s also possible that you may have key repeat enabled on your Mac. Although the vast majority of apps, browsers and web pages support the accented character menu, occasionally you’ll encounter an environment that doesn’t, for example Google Docs doesn’t support this menu. If you hold down a key and the accented menu doesn’t appear, then this may mean that there’s no accented character associated with this particular key, or that the accented menu isn’t supported in the current environment. To exit the menu without selecting a character, press the ‘Escape’ key on your keyboard. To type any of the characters from this menu, simply give it a click or type the number being displayed directly beneath that character. For example, if you wanted to type ë then you should hold down the ‘e’ key, and after a few moments a menu will appear containing all the accented versions of this particular character. The quickest way to type an accented character on your Mac, is to hold down the key that most closely resembles the accented character you have in mind.