How to Type Czech Accents
The 30 characters Czech uses, each one to copy, and the keyboard sequence that types it without copying.
Czech
30 10 with a Windows shortcut that worksHow to type Czech accents on a keyboard
Of the 30 characters on this page, 10 can be typed on a Mac's default ABC layout, and the other 20 need another layout or a copy. Adding ABC – Extended in System Settings, under Keyboard, takes that to 30 of 30: it is the difference between typing Czech and looking it up. On Windows, 12 have a Word and Outlook shortcut and 10 have an Alt code that works anywhere, which is the route when the keyboard has a numeric keypad.
A dead key is pressed and released before the letter, so it looks like nothing happened until you type the vowel. One row here is one rule: learn the acute and every acute letter follows.
| Mark | Example | Mac | Word and Outlook |
|---|---|---|---|
| an acute accent | á | Option + E, then a | Ctrl + ', then a |
| caron | č | Option + V, then c on ABC – Extended | — |
| a ring above | ů | Option + K, then u on ABC – Extended | — |
Mac sequences are read off the layouts this machine runs, with UCKeyTranslate. The Word column is Microsoft's own table for Word and Outlook, not a Windows-wide shortcut.
Czech separates two jobs. The acute marks a long vowel: á, é, í, ó, ú and ý. The caron, called the háček, marks a different consonant altogether: č, ď, ň, ř, š, ť and ž, plus ě on the vowel. The ring above appears on one letter, ů, a long u that grew out of an old diphthong, which is why a word can hold ú at the start and ů in the middle. Ř carries a sound that almost no other language writes.
This group holds 30 characters. They run from U+00C1 to U+017E, close enough together to share a neighbourhood but not a single contiguous run. They are drawn from Latin Extended-A (18), Latin-1 Supplement (12) in the Unicode Standard, which is what decides how each one is encoded and how software sorts and compares it.
Of the seven languages here, Czech is the only one that needs the caron and the a ring above. Everything else it takes, it shares with at least one neighbour.
Most of them, 18 of the 30, come from Latin Extended-A: further accented letters for Central and Eastern European languages. A block is an address rather than a category, and this group is drawn from 2 of them. The rest come from Latin-1 Supplement.
10 of the 30 have a Windows Alt code that works as printed. The rest are copy and paste, which works the same everywhere.
Of the 30, 5 have a Mac shortcut of their own. Everything else in this drawer is reached by copying it or by its codepoint, which works in every application on every system.
Every character below copies with one click. 10 of them have a guide page as well, with the Windows, Mac and HTML route written out.
Other languages
French (32)
32 characters, and the an acute accent as well.
Portuguese (24)
24 characters, and the an acute accent as well.
Polish (18)
18 characters, and the an acute accent as well.
Spanish (14)
14 characters, and the an acute accent as well.
Italian (12)
12 characters, and the an acute accent as well.