Typing letters with diacritics on MacBook Air

alysounmahoney wrote:

. On my old Pro, to type letters with diacritics such as 'á', I could simply hold down the base letter 'a' on my keyboard and a menu of diacritic options for the letter 'a' would pop up. I can't figure out how to replicate this function on my new Air

See this note for the possible fixes for this probem:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250006751

Also on US International PC, you can make diacritics simply by typing ' " ~ ` just before the base letter, it that turns out to be easier than the press and hold method.

Nice user tip!

alysounmahoney wrote:

The reason I came here is that this method does not work on my new Air. When I hold down a letter like a, I end up typing a string of that same letter instead of being presented with the popup menu of options I used to get on my old Pro. I tried the ABC Extended keyboard and that still doesn’t help.

What app are you trying to type in? Maybe the app has its own method of typing accents.

alysounmahoney wrote:

MS Word, Gmail, calendar. On my old MacBook Pro, all of these functioned the same way -- I could hold down a letter on the keyboard and the menu of diacritic options would pop up for me to choose from. Now when I do that, a string of the same letter types out.

Look in Word Help and it will tell you how to type a letter with an accent. Word and other apps have their own process/key sequence to accomplish this.

For example in Word:

1. Press and hold the Ctrl key, then tap and release the punctuation mark that's looks the most like the accent you need.
2. While still pressing down the Ctrl key, tap and release the letter that requires an accent.
3. For example, to add é in "résumé" with French accent marks, press Ctrl+(apostrophe)+e.

Fair enough … sorry I don’t have an M5 MBA to test it on.

Does it work as described in the linked article in Notes and other Apple apps?

Just trying to narrow-down if it’s indeed app-related or more of a “global” issue.

alysounmahoney wrote:

So after multiple AI inquiries, I determined that I needed to change a setting in my Webroot security software, selecting Pause Secure Keyboard Entry. That fixed the problem.

Why are you using a third party antivirus app?

The method you described should still work.

Enter characters with accent marks on Mac - Apple Support

FWIW, my own M5 MBP (26.5.2) functions exactly as described in linked article posted by sberman.

Edit to add: Tested in Notes & Pages.

I wish you well.