Delete just the accent from a character

Dec 17, '07 07:30:06AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

If you type in a language that requires accents (such as Spanish), OS X provides a quick way to make them and delete them without changing your keyboard layout. To make an accent, hold Option then press E, and you will see the accent character. Then press any other key, such as A, E, I, O, or U, and it will place that character beneath the accent. You can also make other characters such as ñ with Option-N then N or ç with Option-C. But most of you probably knew that already.

If you want to delete the accents easily, however, OS X provides a very useful shortcut: Control-Delete. Try typing an accented character and then using Control-Delete instead of just plain Delete. When you do, OS X will convert the accented character into a normal character. I do not know if this works for other characters other than the ones I know from Spanish and Portuguese, but I do know that it works in 10.4 and 10.5.

Here's a list of all the handy keyboard shortcuts OS X provides.

[robg adds: This won't work in absolutely every spot in OS X. In text input boxes in Safari and Camino, for instance, nothing will happen with Control-Delete. But it seems to work most everywhere else.]

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