A With Accent: Copy, Paste & Type

Which a with an accent do you need?

Tell á, à, â, and ä apart

The mark is part of the spelling. Á and á have an acute accent; À and à have a grave accent leaning the other way. A little roof makes â, while two dots make ä. If you’re copying a name, check the original carefully rather than choosing the closest-looking letter.

A tilde, a ring, or a short curve

à and ã have a wavy tilde, as in Portuguese não. Å and å have a ring above them. A straight line gives you ā, and the curved mark on ă is called a breve. You can compare all these shapes in the grid before copying.

When a has two marks

Vietnamese includes forms such as ấ, ắ, and ậ. In these letters, the marks have different jobs, so keep both when copying the word. The grid also includes æ, which joins a and e in one character. It isn’t another way to write an accented a.

For a single letter, use the copy buttons above. Paste with Ctrl + V on Windows or Command + V on Mac; on a phone, touch and hold a text field and choose Paste. To write a longer message, open the online accent keyboard. You can also browse all accent letters from A to Z.

ALT codes and typing help for a with an accent

Windows ALT shortcuts and Unicode decimal values are different ways of referring to characters. Entries marked “Unicode decimal” below are reference numbers, not standard Windows ALT shortcuts. For those letters, copy the character or use the Word method below.

How to type a with an accent on Windows

Using a numeric keypad

For á, try Alt + 0225 with the usual Western Windows character set. Keep the first zero. The result can depend on your app and system settings.

• Turn on Num Lock and click where you want the letter.
• Press and hold the ALT key.
• Type 0225 on the numeric keypad, not the number row above the letters.
• Release ALT and check that you get á.

Type á with Alt + X in Word

Word for Windows can turn a Unicode hexadecimal code into a letter. For á, use 00E1. You don’t need a numeric keypad for this method.

• Click where the letter belongs in your Word document.
• Type 00E1, without the U+ prefix.
• Select just that code and press ALT + X.
• The selected code changes to á.

See Microsoft’s character-code instructions for more about these two methods. To look up another letter, use the ALT code directory.

On a Mac, phone, or tablet

In supported Mac apps, holding a letter key opens an accent menu. The choices depend on the letter, and less common forms may be missing. You can always copy á from this page and paste it with Command + V. On a phone or tablet, tap a copy button here, then use Paste in the app where you’re writing.

Unicode and HTML codes for accented a

Use this table when you need the character’s code rather than the letter itself. Unicode identifies the character; the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript columns show ways to write it in code. For a normal message or document, copying the letter is enough.