Apr 15, 2019
foreign language accents when writing Gmail using a laptop or desktop computer(not a phone)
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All Replies (27)
Check if the details included under "Type in another language" helps - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/17091?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop and post an update.
Last edited Apr 15, 2019
Dec 4, 2019
Dec 9, 2019
Okay after much trial and error with spanish -
You need to search for Input Tools in your gmail account settings, and add french (or spanish) as one of your languages, and then make sure "show onscreen keyboard" is on. Then after a minute you should have the keyboard icon next to your settings gearwheel icon in your inbox window. From there, start to compose a message, and click the keyboard icon to select the foreign keyboard, and you get some special characters BUT ALSO now you can get an accented vowel by typing ` or ' right before the vowel. It only worked after several tries and several minutes. and it only works when the virtual keyboard is showing in your window. Hope that does the trick for you. In gmail at least. I'm using Firefox on a PC.
Dec 9, 2019
Dec 10, 2019
Theresa, a potential workaround is finding a website that lists all the marks and then just copying and pasting it into your sentence/word. For example, https://spellpundit.com/spellshakti/diacritical-marks/ shows some examples and I can copy and paste some of those into Gmail compose.
Jan 7, 2020
Penelope, thanks for the attempted solution but i think many like me need to, for example, add a character with an accent to a note written in English. Switching back and forth between languages within the same gmail note is not possible.
Is there any solution other than maintaining a cheat sheet of special characters to copy from and paste?
Any info is appreciated!
Jan 9, 2020
I have a mac and it is so much easier than a pc to insert letters with accents. I use Spanish quite a bit and I need simply press and hold the letter I need to be accented.
For instance, I press and hold the n. A pop-up window appears with the options. I then press the corresponding number and voilà I now have the accented letter!
The image is not visible due to forum settings.
Jan 10, 2020
Other options that were discovered within the past day:
- You all can use Chrome extensions like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/accents-diacritics-for-gm/aemcokmmdpmcgfegnllnjfnocamllleh?hl=en.
- A Chrome extension that gives you all a virtual keyboard in that language to type that one odd character.
- Add an additional keyboard in the system settings.
Last edited Jan 10, 2020
Jan 24, 2020
You can't just do this within gmail? I do not use Chrome.
This is 2020 - we should be able to choose the language we use and even be able to use correct spelling in an English document of a foreign word.
Get it together, Google
Jan 26, 2020
Jan 27, 2020
Could you possibly describe exactly how adding a language makes this possible? Are you referring to the following menu: Settings / General / Language / Edit Tools / Input Tools ???
Thank you.
Feb 19, 2020
You all can use Chrome extensions like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/accents-diacritics-for-gm/aemcokmmdpmcgfegnllnjfnocamllleh?hl=en.
I had previously tried the "FastAccent" Chrome extension and it never worked. But the "Accents & Diacritics for Gmail" Chrome extension linked above works great for my needs when working in gmail in my Chrome browser. When I'm in gmail on my iPhone I can just hold down the letter and then selected the accented character.
If you do not use Chrome or do not have an iPhone YMMV.
Feb 20, 2020
You can consider some extensions that Matthew came on to say today that https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/accents-diacritics-for-gm/aemcokmmdpmcgfegnllnjfnocamllleh?hl=en has been working well for him and works for Chrome and iPhone.
Thanks for letting us know, Matthew, great to know!!