Do Spanish speaking people have a Spanish keyboard?

Do you actually have a keyboard with Spanish characters like "Ñ", "ñ", "¿", "¡" and the accent marks? Or do you keep typing the ASCII codes to get these characters?

Thanks,

- Irene

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Dear Irene,

As a matter of fact, we do have Spanish keyboards. But you don't need a Spanish keyboard to type Spanish characters without ASCII codes. You can set up your keyboard to work with two languages (English/Spanish) or more.

To install the international keyboard, open the keyboard configuration utility. This normally would be done from the Start menu, then selecting Settings and then Control Panel and then Keyboard. Within the keyboard configuration utility, select the Language tab, then press the "Add..." button to add Spanish (for most purposes it doesn't matter which nationality of Spanish you pick). Then with the Spanish keyboard selected, press the "Properties" button and select the "U.S.-International" keyboard. You will also be offered a selection of methods for switching between the English and Spanish keyboards. If you select "None," you will need to shift between the two keyboards manually from the Control Panel. If you select "Ctrl + Shift," you can switch between the keyboards by pressing the Ctrl and Shift keys simultaneously at any time. The special characters will work only when the international keyboard is activated.

There are also other methods to type Spanish characters, for a complete lesson about them, visit this link.

Regards,

- Karin