How to type A with accent (á, à, â)? Guide with Alt Code

Stick around and you will find copy paste buttons for every variation, a full alt code reference table, dedicated sections for each accent mark with real language examples, Mac shortcuts, and a full Unicode table for developers working in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Java, and C.

A with accent Copy Paste

Click any button below and the character copies straight to your clipboard, ready to paste into a document, message, or line of code. No need to memorize a single code.

If you're interested in learning more about other accents, this post about all accent letters alphabetically will give you a full overview.

Lowercase a with accent

Capital A with accent

Alt Code for a with accent

Alt codes let you type accented characters on Windows using the numeric keypad. Whether you need a with acute, a with grave, a with dot, a with macron, or a with tilde, every variation has its own four digit code that works across Word, Excel, and most text fields.

1. Enable Num Lock on your keyboard, since alt codes only work through the numeric keypad.
2. Place your cursor exactly where you want the accented letter to appear.
3. Press and hold the Alt key.
4. While still holding Alt, type the full numeric code shown in the table below on the numeric keypad, including any leading zero.
5. Release the Alt key and the accented character appears automatically.

The table below lists the alt code for every variation covered in this guide, from the everyday accents to rarer combined marks like a with circumflex and acute, so you have one complete reference in a single place.

A with acute

A with acute is the letter a topped with a small upward stroke, written as á in lowercase and Á in capital. It usually marks a stressed syllable or a distinct vowel sound, and you will spot it across Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Icelandic, Czech, and several other languages.

In Spanish, the acute accent marks the stressed syllable and can shift a word's meaning entirely, as in está (is or stays) compared to esta (this). Portuguese uses á for an open, stressed vowel sound, seen in sofá (sofa), já (already), and há (there is).

Vietnamese pairs á with a rising tone, changing the word completely from other tone marks placed on the same base letter. Icelandic, Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian treat á differently again, using it to mark vowel length rather than stress. Icelandic á on its own means on or river, while Czech váza (vase) carries a long á against the short a in voda (water).

A with grave

A with grave carries a small downward stroke over the letter, written à in lowercase and À in capital. Unlike the acute accent, it rarely changes pronunciation on its own and instead helps separate words that would otherwise look identical, most notably in French and Italian.

French uses à mainly to tell homophones apart, since à (to, at) and a (the verb form of avoir) sound the same but mean different things, just as là (there) is separated from la (the). The accent barely affects pronunciation in French.

Italian relies on à to mark stress on a final vowel, changing how the whole word is read aloud, as in città (city) and già (already). Vietnamese uses à for a falling tone, and Catalan uses à for an open, stressed vowel, as in està (is or stays).

A with two dots (diaeresis)

A with two dots, known as a diaeresis or umlaut, is written ä in lowercase and Ä in capital. Unlike a stress mark, it usually signals a completely different vowel sound from plain a, most recognizable in German, Finnish, Swedish, and Estonian.

In German, ä represents a fronted vowel sound close to the e in bed, and it often appears in plural forms, as Mann becomes Männer. Words like Mädchen (girl) and Bär (bear) rely on this distinct sound rather than any added stress.

Finnish, Swedish, and Estonian treat ä as its own letter of the alphabet rather than an accented variant, placed near the end of their alphabets. Finnish äiti (mother) and Swedish äpple (apple) both use this separate vowel sound, not a modified a.

A with circumflex

A with circumflex is written â in lowercase and  in capital, marked by a small upward pointing hat above the letter. It most often signals a historical sound change or a lengthened vowel, and it plays a big role in French and Romanian spelling.

French circumflex usually marks a letter, often an s, that used to follow the vowel in Old French, as in château (castle) and âge (age). It also separates otherwise identical words, such as pâte (dough) from patte (paw).

Romanian uses â for the same central vowel sound as î, choosing â specifically inside a word, as in român (Romanian) and câine (dog). Vietnamese also treats â as a distinct short vowel, frequently combined with tone marks on top.

A with breve

A with breve is written ă in lowercase and Ă in capital, marked by a small upward curve that resembles a smile above the letter. It signals a short vowel sound, and it is a core letter in Romanian and Vietnamese rather than a rare accent mark.

In Romanian, ă represents its own central vowel sound, close to the a in about, and appears in everyday words like măr (apple) and casă (house). It counts as a distinct letter of the alphabet, not simply a variant of a.

Vietnamese uses ă for a short a sound that almost always carries a tone mark as well, as in ăn (to eat). In classical Latin pronunciation guides, the breve is used purely to mark that a vowel is short rather than long.

A with macron

A with macron is written ā in lowercase and Ā in capital, shown as a straight horizontal line above the letter. It marks a long vowel sound, and you will see it most often in Japanese romanization, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Polynesian languages like Māori and Hawaiian.

In Hepburn romanization of Japanese, ā shows that a vowel sound is held about twice as long as a plain a, as in obāsan (grandmother) and okāsan (mother). Getting the length right changes how natural the word sounds, even when the core meaning stays the same.

Māori and Hawaiian use the macron, called tohutō in Māori and kahakō in Hawaiian, to mark vowel length that can change a word's meaning entirely, as in Māori whānau (family). Latvian and Lithuanian also use ā for long vowels, seen in words like māja (house).

A with tilde

A with tilde is written ã in lowercase and à in capital, marked by a wavy line above the letter. It signals a nasal vowel sound, most recognizable in Portuguese, where it changes how a word sounds through the nose rather than the mouth alone.

Portuguese words like mãe (mother), irmã (sister), and the city name São Paulo all rely on ã for that nasal quality, and swapping it for a plain a changes the pronunciation noticeably. This works differently from the ñ used in Spanish, which marks a separate consonant sound instead of a nasal vowel.

Guarani and a handful of other languages also use ã to mark nasalization on vowels, following a pattern similar to Portuguese. Outside of these languages, ã rarely appears except in loanwords or transliterated names.

How to type accent a on mac

The steps and table below cover every core accent mark for the letter a on a Mac keyboard, using the built in Option key shortcuts that work in almost every app.

1. Find the accent mark you need in the table below.
2. Press the listed Option key combination first, then release both keys.
3. Type the letter a for a lowercase result, or hold Shift and type A for a capital result.
4. For macron or breve, press and hold the a key instead to open the accent popup, or switch to the Unicode Hex Input keyboard for direct codes.

A accent unicode and different programming languages

The table below contains the Unicode code point, HTML hex and decimal entities, CSS escape, and the shared escape format for JavaScript, Java, and C for every accent variation of a covered in this guide, useful whenever you need to insert these characters directly in your code.

Conclusion

Whether you needed a quick copy paste character, a Windows alt code, a Mac shortcut, or a Unicode reference for your code, this guide has you covered for every variation of a with accent. Bookmark this page any time you need á, à, â, ä, ā, ã, or ă again, along with their rarer combined forms.