Use the US International keyboard layout
Press Ctrl + Shift to switch keyboard layouts
Type apostrophe + letter for acute accents: ‘ + a = á
Type backtick + letter for grave accents: ` + a = à
Type caret + letter for circumflex accents: ^ + a = â
Type tilde + letter for tilde accents: ~ + a = ñ
Type double quote + letter for umlaut/diaeresis: ” + a = ä
Use Alt codes with the numeric keypad
Hold Alt and type 0224 for à
Hold Alt and type 0225 for á
Hold Alt and type 0226 for â
Hold Alt and type 0228 for ä
Hold Alt and type 0229 for å
Hold Alt and type 0231 for ç
Hold Alt and type 0241 for ñ
Hold Alt and type 0246 for ö
Hold Alt and type 0252 for ü
Use the Character Map app
Search for Character Map in the Start menu
Copy and paste accented characters from the web or another document
Use the Windows emoji and symbol panel with Win + .
Use Microsoft Word’s Insert Symbol feature
Use the on-screen keyboard with the correct language layout