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Setting style for Accent tool in Word (Windows, Office 365)

Anonymous
2013-10-07T00:53:51+00:00

With regret, let me start by saying that inserting accented letters into a Word document on Windows is much harder than it should be.  I have to use a lot of foreign words.  When there is a touchscreen available, I usually find myself resorting to the on-screen keyboard, and holding down the letter to get the pop-up menu (quickly giving you eēéêèë, for example).  The key-combination method on the Mac isn't perfect, but it's much better than Windows can offer with a physical keyboard.  Given that most people don't often need to type words like "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" or "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," I think you should reprogram the hardware keys to work like the virtual ones. 

My question, however, relates to the Accents tool in Word, which is almost passable, except that the letters always appear in Cambria Math italics rather than the style set for the paragraph.  Is there a way to set a default font and style for the tool?  It's useful for more than writing formulas.

Thank you for any assistance.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2013-10-07T02:00:29+00:00

    The Accent gallery is intended only for use with the Equation feature, not for general typing of accented characters in text.

    Almost every font in Windows -- other than the symbol-type fonts -- has a full set of accented characters. You can see them all in the dialog box reached by clicking Insert > Symbol > More Symbols. When you select an accented character in that dialog and look at the bottom line, there will be an indication of the shortcut key to use for that character. If you memorize a few rules, you can speed up your typing by not having to open the dialog:

    • To make any of the vowels with a grave accent such as à, press the Ctrl key and the backtick (`) key (on a US keyboard, usually at the left end of the number row) together, release them, and type the vowel.
    • To make any of the vowels with an acute accent such as á, press the Ctrl key and the apostrophe (') key together, release them, and type the vowel.
    • For a letter with a tilde such as ñ, press Ctrl and the tilde key together, release them, and type the letter.
    • For a letter with an umlaut such as ö, press Ctrl and the colon together, release, and type the letter.

    All of these will insert the character in the same font as the preceding letter. The only problem that might occur is that the font of the preceding letter doesn't contain the necessary accented character, so you'll get whatever is in the corresponding position for that font. That can be remedied by changing the font of just the accented character.

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  1. Suzanne S Barnhill 277.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2013-10-07T13:17:05+00:00

    To add to Jay's list, for letters with a circumflex accent, press Ctrl+^ (Ctrl+Shift+6 on U.S. keyboards), then the letter. You can also type ç using Ctrl+, (comma), c. There's a full rundown in http://WordFAQs.mvps.org/InsertSpecChars.htm; as you can see, several of the others you mention are also included.

     For the rest, you can assign your own keyboard shortcuts. For example, you could assign Ctrl+- (hyphen), o and Ctrl+-, O to ō and Ō. Note that Word will display these as "Ctrl+-, O" and "Ctrl+-, Shift+O."

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-10-07T08:18:54+00:00

    While Jay's tip is very helpful, I want to point out that the on-screen keyboard method still has a strange advantage, because it gives quicker and more intuitive access to a wider range of characters, for example "ō œ ø" for O, and "ç" for the letter C.  I continue to think the accenting features need improvement and greater clarity.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-07T08:07:57+00:00

    Thank you, problem solved.  The keyboard shortcuts are exactly like what I was describing on the Mac, so I will do that.  My only remaining thought is that the name of the "Accent" gallery is extremely misleading.  I'm sure other people must be using it the same way I was.

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