How do I do special characters on my Asus zenbook?

[samemmerich]

System: Windows 10
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Model: Asus Zenbook 13
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Detailed description：I know I can do certain letters with acute accents using Alt and my keyboard with standard settings but I want do do grave accents and cedillas. I have tried to activate the US International keyboard but it is not on the list available to select from Settings> Time and Language> add language, nor can I find it in options under the default English keyboard options. My numeric keypad is on my mouse touchpad and it doesn't work to produce special characters either. What can I do?

[Liviu]

You should switch to a keyboard language that has such special characters, like French and so on.

[sebastiancurzyt · Accepted solution]

Quick answer:
The accents printed on the keyboard should work when you hold 'Alt Gr' key which is to the right of the spacebar. You don't need to change/install another keyboard language or layout.
Longer answer:
Remember that the letter that appears on screen depends upon the keyboard layout currently used and you can switch between multiple installed keyboard layouts using 'Win' + 'Space'.
If I use the "English (United Kingdom)" keyboard then 'Alt Gr' + 'a' gives 'á'.
However, if I use the "Polish (Programmers)" keyboard then 'Alt Gr' + 'a' gives 'ą'.
That being said, using this key can be a bit clunky so you should consider installing and learning a keyboard layout suited to your language.
You can check out and try most keyboard layouts in a web browser by searching for and going on the websites 'gate2key' or 'branah'. Choose the layout you want to type in, then just type in the textbox and watch the characters appear as if you had that keyboard layout enabled on your device. For a better view of your keyboard layout search for the website 'kbdlayout'. The alternate keys could be typed with either 'Alt' or 'Alt Gr' depending on which side of the keyboard they appear on. You may also find that your laptop keyboard either lacks a key or has it in a weird space e.g. the '#' key on my ASUS UM425IA.
If you want to install another keyboard layout, you will need to install the language associated with it in Windows. Don't worry, you won't find your Windows menu language change to it if you do this.
Go to Windows Settings>Time and Language>Language. Then under the heading 'Preferred Languages' click 'Add a language' and add the language you want. If that language has multiple keyboard layouts associated with it, then you may want to change the keyboard layout. You do this by clicking the language you added, then 'Options' and adding/removing layouts associated with that language. For example, Polish defaults to "Polish (Programmers)" which is almost identical to "English (US)", rather than "Polish (214)" which is better for typing text containing many Polish specific characters such as the word 'łóżko' without using the awkward 'Alt Gr' key.
Then cycle between layouts by pressing 'Win' + 'Space'.
Happy typing!

[samemmerich]

Hey thanks! Branah was really helpful - never came across it before. You could manage just with that if you are only typing, say, French words occasionally. Your tip about toggling between language input with the windows key + space was new to me too. So I can now do what I want to do - but it's a bit of a faff isn't it? It seems to me that the Alt gr key could be used on the English keyboard for so many more characters. Anyway thanks again 🙂