Spanish on US computer keyboards

Hi,
It's driving me crazy that I can't use proper Spanish punctuation when I post messages (accent marks, the "~" over the "n," etc.). Any suggestions for making those characters on an American PC? I can do it in Word, but don't know how to when posting to the Web.
Thanks!
Tara

Hi taravb!! Welcome back from Spain!!!

The following is reposted from laduque's December 6th posting on the " MadridMan\'s Birthday? " thread... Additionally:

ª = alt 1 6 6 (for abbreviated "Maria" as "Mª")
º = alt 1 6 7 (for abbreviated "Número" as "Nº" or for degrees)
¡ = alt 1 7 3 (upside down exclamation)
Ñ = alt 1 6 5

Saludos, MadridMan

Thanks so much MadridMan! I may not always get those accent marks in the right places, but I wanted to be able to try!! I loved the keyboards in Spain--it was really cool how they "knew" if you wanted an apostrophe (like in "don't") or an accent mark, based on which letter you typed immediately following it.

We had such fun in Spain--much of it thanks to my new MadridMan message board friends. And here's a funny story--we ran into someone from our flight, 6 nights after we landed in Madrid, in Hostal Chelo--both led there by postings right here! You're doing your part to make this a smaller world, MM!
Tara

<blushing> I'm humbled by your kind words, taravb. Thank you!

Thanks for the keyboard tip.

You can also easily install a language-keyboard layout for Spanish (or several other languages). Assuming you are using Windows 95 or higher, do it through Keyboards in Control Panel (you must have the Windows installation disk), of course.

Once installed, you can toggle the layouts on the task bar and zip-a-dee-dah, this becomes a snap: a single stroke for ñ and two strokes for á, é, í, ó, ú

sorry MadridMan but the

ñ is: alt 164

I use windows 98 with my computer, and I managed to change the configurations on my computer very easily. I think this can be done with most computers. I went to the statup menu, and I clicked on settings, then I went to keyboard, and clicked on the language tab at the top. If you put your computer in the US-international setting all the accents work. All you have to do it push the apostrophe mark before the vowel, and it will come up. The only thing that takes some getting used to, is the fact that in order to actually use the apostrophe, you have to press the apostrophe and the spacebar afterward. Although, in a word like don't, you wouldn't have to, because there are two consonants, and the computer knows not to put the accent over a t. I hope that helps and isn't too confusing.

Rafael, yes, as laduque posted in my quoted message above, ñ is alt + 1 6 4. But the capital Ñ is alt + 1 6 5.

Also, I forgot to mention that you need to be sure your NUM LOCK button/key is in the ON position before trying to use the keypad on PC keyboards.

Saludos, MadridMan

rondelagua wrote: Today I had the necessity to install an actual Spanish keyboard and used rondelauga's suggestions above and it worked perfectly! I had to use the "Spanish (Traditional Sort)" option and then I toggle between languages with Left-Alt + Shift. GREAT! I happen to use Windows98 but didn´t need the installation disk at all.

Saludos, MadridMan