How to Type French Accents

The layout of the French keyboard, known as AZERTY, is somewhat different than the layouts of other keyboards. If you're used to QWERTY, you'll find - among other changes - that the A and Q have switched places, W and Z have switched, and M is where the semi-colon used to be. In addition, numbers require the shift key.

On the other hand, you can type the grave accent (à, è, ù) and acute accent (é) with a single key, and the other accented letters with a combination of two keys:

• To type anything with a circumflex (â, ê, etc), type ^ then the vowel
• For a tréma, (ä, ë, etc), type ¨ and the vowel

In order to use the French keyboard to type French accents, you need to select that keyboard layout.