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meyestone's avatar
meyestone
Copper Contributor
Oct 04, 2023

Some accent shortcut keys not working in Word (but one does!)

Hi, I got an older laptop at work (not crazy old, but used by others) and in Word (Microsoft 365 Apps for Business) two of the three shortcut keys I regularly use to type accented characters don't work.

 

- I can do Ctrl-` followed by a letter and get an accent grave (So Ctrl-`, e gives me è)

- But, Ctrl-' does *not* give me an accent aigu. Ctrl-', e just gives me an e, rather than é.

- Similarly, I get no accent circonflexe when I use Ctrl-Shift-^. Ctrl-Shift-^, e just gives me an e, rather than ê.

 

I have using the English US keyboard layout (and have disabled the French (Canadian) keyboard.)

 

I've checked that there are no other actions mapped to the Ctrl-' and Ctrl-Shift-^ key combinations (in Customize Ribbon, Keyboard Shortcuts, Customize).

 

I've googled up and down and found no one with the same problem. 

 

Again, the one works - I can make à, è and ò, but not á, é ,ó, â, ê, or ô. I'm forced to use "Insert Symbol" every time I want to add an accented character (and I'm in Canada, so have to write lots of words with accented characters in them.)

 

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance.

  • meyestone 

     

    In Word, you can (re-)assign keyboard shortcuts to characters through the Symbol dialog box (Insert tab > Symbols group > Symbol > More Symbols. Select the desired character and use the Keyboard Shortcut button.

     

     

    • meyestone's avatar
      meyestone
      Copper Contributor

      Stefan_Blom Thanks, but that would mean I'd need to invent a shortcut key for every accented character! I just want the "normal" Ctrl+', [letter], or Chrt-Shift-^, [letter] to work, the way that Ctrl-`, [letter] works. This has worked on every other Word installation I've ever used! 

      • Stefan_Blom's avatar
        Stefan_Blom
        MVP

        meyestone 

         

        Thanks for the update. I see your point. 

         

        I would look into keyboard settings once more, and the regional settings in Windows. Do you see a possible explanation there? 

         

        It is maybe a long shot, but you could try a different (physical) keyboard. 

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