# Help! Need Foreign Punctuation for MacBook Stat! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 12, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-need-foreign-punctuation-for-macbook-stat/459747 "2008-08-12T16:36:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-need-foreign-punctuation-for-macbook-stat/459747/1 "2008-08-12T16:36:06Z")
My daughter is off to college soon. She corresponds with some of them there French type peoples. She now owns a new MacBook (she is used to Windows). How does one access say the accent mark for some French words? I tried inputting “foreign punctuation” into Spotlight and got no results found. Can anyone help? Also, we found the international setting in System Finder, but where to from here? How to make it “type in French”? Merci to all. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-need-foreign-punctuation-for-macbook-stat/459747/2 "2008-08-12T16:42:40Z")
It’s all done with the option keys. There’s a list [here](http://tlt.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codemac.html) and several others throughout the Internet, including one on the Apple website. I suggest she downloads [this widget](http://www.tacowidgets.com/widgets/characterpal/) to use in Dashboard for even quicker reference. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-need-foreign-punctuation-for-macbook-stat/459747/3 "2008-08-12T16:54:08Z")
Thank you so much. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-need-foreign-punctuation-for-macbook-stat/459747/4 "2008-08-12T18:20:24Z")
Also, you can switch the keyboard to French. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-need-foreign-punctuation-for-macbook-stat/459747/5 "2008-08-12T18:33:57Z")
The US Extended keyboard, however, allows great flexibility in diacritics. I use it to type in French and Esperanto. (Option+6, g = ĝ. Option+b, u = ŭ. Option+e, e = é.) See [here](http://tlt.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codemacext.html). ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-need-foreign-punctuation-for-macbook-stat/459747/6 "2008-08-12T19:25:46Z")
Also, search in spotlight for ‘character palette’ for the more obscure ones, or use the ‘internation’ system prefs to get it to show up. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-need-foreign-punctuation-for-macbook-stat/459747/7 "2008-08-12T22:03:32Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Also, you can switch the keyboard to French. [/QUOTE] I think we did this in the International setting. Merci!