Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

(Or whatever those are called in English.)

I need to merge Charlotte Bronte with Charlotte Bronte".

If you don't have the symbol available on your keyboard, the fastest way is to copy from the correct name and paste onto the incorrect name -- that way you know that the encoding is correct and they're exact matches.

I didn't think of that, thanks.

Another way to do it is to use html coding. For umlauts that is generally an ampersand (&) followed by the letter that should have the umlaut (e.g., U) followed by the letters "uml" and a semicolon. Thus

Ü = Ü
ä = ä
etc.

Thank you Michael!

è é ù ú , etc.

How about for accents?

If you are using a Windows operating system, you can use the Character Map application.

Click the Windows icon at bottom left of your screen then: All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map.

This application will give you all the varient characters that are available for the different fonts loaded on your computer. (I've never used a Mac, but I'm sure it would have a similar application.)

By the way, in English the umlaut is usually called a diaeresis and indicates that a vowel should be voiced independently, such as in naïve or, indeed, Brontë.

The Character Map is very useful. It has examples right on there so you see what you're doing.

And, it also will give you the keyboard shortcuts that will make them work. I just jot down the ones I use most and keep them handy.

Hold down the "alt" key on your keyboard while you type the numbers:

"alt"0233 = é
"alt"0250 = ú
"alt"0243 = ó
"alt"0237 = í
"alt"0225 = á
"alt"0241 = ñ
"alt"0191 = ¿
"alt"0161 = ¡

That last one is hard to tell in small font, but it's the upside down exclamation point used in Spanish at the beginning of the exclamation.

¡Pronto!

Yes, I work in an office where some occasional Spanish use is helpful.

If you want to use html coding, they work the same way as umlauts. All characters start with the ampersand and end with a semicolon. Between these you start with the letter to be accented and then either "acute" or "grave" depending on the direction of the accent.

á = á
à = à

Broadly speaking, you can easily find lists of all html character codings on the web, such as here. Just do a search for "html character codes".

However, the easiest way to do special characters if you can't remember/rattle off the html code :-) is to use something like the Windows Character Map or a browser plug-in (e.g., klavaro for chrome) which provides a virtual special character keyboard.

Brilliant, thank you all.

One other way to use accents, if you have a US keyboard and if you need them a lot is changing the keyboard definition from US to US-international. Several keys become 'dead-key'-s, i.e. they do not react immediately. If the next character is a letter that can have that symbol as an accent, the accent is put on the letter, otherwise the accent is placed separatedly, followed with the letter. Like the typewriter. So if you type ' followed by a, you'd get á, etc.