Dead keys explained

What a dead key is

A dead key is a key that types nothing when you press it. It waits for the next key and combines with it. On a Spanish keyboard you press ´ and nothing appears; press e and you get é. 86 of the 206 Windows layouts work this way for at least one accent.

The name comes from typewriters, where an accent key struck the paper without moving the carriage, so the next letter landed under it. On a computer the keyboard layout does the combining.

The three rules every dead key follows

• Accent then letter gives the accented letter: ´ then a gives á, ¨ then u gives ü.
• Accent then Space gives the accent on its own. This holds on 81 of the 86 layouts with dead keys.
• Accent then a letter that cannot take it gives both characters. On US International, ' then s types 's: nothing is lost.

The most common dead keys

Counting across all layouts, these are the accents most often placed on a dead key:

The layouts with the most dead keys are Greek Polytonic (32), Cherokee Phonetic (30), Romanian (Programmers) (12), Romanian (Standard) (12), Serbian (Latin) (11). Greek Polytonic needs them for the breathings and accents of ancient Greek.

US International: accents on an American keyboard

If you have a US keyboard and write in French, Spanish, German or Portuguese now and then, the United States-International layout is the usual answer. It turns 5 keys into dead keys and leaves every letter where it is:

The catch is the apostrophe and the quote mark: they are dead keys too, so ' then e gives é instead of 'e. Type the apostrophe followed by Space when you want it alone. The home page keyboard has US International in its Layout menu, so you can try it.

Dead keys by language

Each language decides differently. Some put every accented letter on its own key; others lean on dead keys:

Dead keys, AltGr and long press

AltGr (the right Alt key) is the other way to reach extra characters: 154 layouts use it. Some layouts combine both: on Polish (Programmers), AltGr + A types ą directly, with no dead key. Phones use a third method, touching and holding a letter to see its accented forms.

Questions

Why does my apostrophe not appear until I type the next letter?

Your layout is United States-International, where the apostrophe is a dead key. Press Space after it to type it alone, or switch to the plain US layout if you rarely need accents.

How do I turn off dead keys?

Switch to a layout without them for your language, for example US instead of United States-International. Dead keys belong to the layout, so changing the layout is the switch.

How do I type an accent on its own, like ^ or ´?

Press the dead key, then Space. That gives the bare accent on 81 of the 86 layouts with dead keys.

Try it on the keyboard

• French keyboard
• Spanish keyboard
• German keyboard
• Portuguese keyboard
• Czech keyboard

More guides

• Keyboard layouts of the world
• Hebrew keyboard layout
• Hebrew final letters
• Arabic harakat on the keyboard
• How to type Korean
• Romaji chart
• Russian keyboard layout
• How to add a keyboard language

Sources

• Unicode CLDR release 43, keyboards/windows (transforms)

Every key and count in this guide is computed from the layout data when the site is built, so it always matches the keyboards here.