Tip: How to type ñ
If you’re composing an invitation to a piñata party and you’re wondering how to type that ñ, here’s how:
Press and hold Option…
…while pressing n…
…then release and press n again, alone…
…to type this:
Also:
Option + E, then E again → é
Option + U, then E → ë
Option + C → ç
And, in Spanish, it’s usually called an “eñe”, which is a separate letter from the plain “n”.
If you want an easy reference to what you can type with any modifier key combination (i.e., Shift, or Option, or Option-Shift), go to the International pane of System Preferences, click the Input Menu tab, then check the box for Keyboard Viewer. This is the equivalent of Key Caps in older versions of the Mac OS (including 9 and earlier).
If you hold Option, or Option-Shift, and run your fingers along the keyboard, you get gibberish like this:
∂ƒ¨¥©˚¨˙¬˚˜¬∫√≤ç©˙∆µ∂†ƒ∆¥©Ô˝ÓΡÁ¨Ò˝Ó˘ı¯˜
The is opt-shift-K, fyi.
Greetings!
While I am sure that there is someone out there who spells their name like that, the /ñ/ is not typically found in a name like Manuel. That said, I appreciate the help you are trying to provide to the community.
Respectfully,
Mark S.
Mark–thanks. I updated the introduction to mention piñata instead;
Leland–thanks. I deliberately avoided mentioning the International System preference panel, since plenty of other tips on the web already do. Instead, I wanted to focus on a single diacritical whose omission annoys.
Cool; I see where you’re coming from.
With my sister currently living in Germany, my mother was ecstatic when I showed her how to type the umlaut, the Euro €, and whole bunches of other stuff (including the German keyboard layout, even though it’s borderline useless on the US-spec keyboard hardware). She now knows how to pull up the viewer if she forgets.
I’ve got a Matias keyboard at home that has all of the option characters on the keys themselves. Really nice for when I do want to type an umlauts or other sorts of marks.
Thanks for the tip. These keyboard shortcuts are great.
If the key is more complicated, you could look to the Mac’s character palette and keyboard viewer, located under the little flag in the menu bar. (On my Mac, it is a US flag.)
The character palette shows you all possible characters. The keyboard gives you a real time preview of what it means to type option-shift-3, and what not. I needed to write some pronunciations (think “long o”) - an umlaut was all I knew… then the character palette came to my rescue.
on the iphone you get the same result by holding the key down until a pop up menu shows and then slide finger to choice and release.