The US International keyboard layout explained

The US International layout is the best keyboard change most English speakers never make. It keeps every key exactly where it already is, then adds two ways to reach accented letters: dead keys on the punctuation you rarely use, and a whole extra character set on the right Alt key. No numbers to memorise, no picker to open.

Every combination below comes from Microsoft’s own keyboard layout data and the equivalent Linux layout source file, not from a copied list.

What actually changes

Two things, and nothing else.

Five keys become dead keys. Press ', ", `, ~ or ^ and nothing appears yet. Type a vowel next and you get the accented letter. Type a space next and you get the plain punctuation mark.

The right Alt key becomes AltGr. Hold it with a letter and you get that letter’s accented form directly: AltGr+E for é, AltGr+N for ñ, AltGr+S for ß.

You do not lose a single existing key. Your Q is still Q.

Turning it on

Windows 10 and 11: Settings > Time and language > Language and region. Click the three dots next to your language, choose Language options, then Add a keyboard, then United States-International. Switch between layouts with Win+Space.

macOS: the analogue is ABC Extended. Add it under System Settings > Keyboard > Text Input > Edit, then the plus button, then English, then ABC Extended. You may not need it at all: the standard Mac layout already gives you Option+E, Option+U, Option+I, Option+N and Option plus the grave key as dead keys. See How to type accents on a Mac (Option key and press-and-hold) for the full map.

Linux: add “English (US, international with dead keys)” in your desktop’s input sources. GNOME puts this under Settings > Keyboard > Input Sources; KDE under Keyboard > Layouts. There is also an “English (international AltGr dead keys)” variant that moves the dead keys onto AltGr, so your apostrophe and quote behave normally. Details in How to type accents on Linux (Compose key).

ChromeOS offers a US International input option as well; add it in the input settings and see How to type accents on a Chromebook.

The dead key table

Press the dead key, release it, then press the letter.

Dead key	a	e	i	o	u	y	n	c	Space
'	á	é	í	ó	ú	ý		ç	'
" (Shift+’)	ä	ë	ï	ö	ü	ÿ			"
`	à	è	ì	ò	ù				`
~ (Shift+`)	ã			õ			ñ		~
^ (Shift+6)	â	ê	î	ô	û				^

For capitals, hold Shift on the letter, not on the dead key: ' then Shift+E gives É. If you press a dead key followed by a letter that has no accented form, you get both characters, which is exactly what you want when typing “don’t” or “it’s”.

Note the two useful oddities: ' then c gives ç, and ' then y gives ý.

The AltGr table: vowels and letters

Key	AltGr	Shift+AltGr	Key	AltGr	Shift+AltGr
a	á	Á	q	ä	Ä
e	é	É	w	å	Å
i	í	Í	p	ö	Ö
o	ó	Ó	y	ü	Ü
u	ú	Ú	n	ñ	Ñ

The AltGr table: special letters

Key	AltGr	Shift+AltGr
s	ß	§
z	æ	Æ
l	ø	Ø
d	ð	Ð
t	þ	Þ
,	ç	Ç
m	µ
c	©	¢
r	®

That row covers German ß, Danish and Norwegian ø, French and Portuguese ç, and Icelandic ð and þ. Note that AltGr+comma is where the cedilla lives, which nobody guesses first time.

The AltGr table: punctuation, currency, maths

Key	AltGr	Shift+AltGr
1	¡	¹
4	¤	£
5	€
-	¥
=	×	÷
[	«
]	»
;	¶	°
\	¬	¦
/	¿

Keys 6, 7 and 8 give ¼, ½ and ¾, keys 2 and 3 give ² and ³, and 9 and 0 give the curly single quotes. Spanish writers get both ¿ and ¡ without leaving the home position, which is the single best argument for this layout.

The plain quote problem, and how to live with it

This is the complaint everyone has in week one. You type "Hello" and get ¨Hello¨, or you type an apostrophe before a vowel and get an accented letter instead.

Three fixes, in order of how much they help:

1. Press the space bar after the quote. " then Space gives a plain ". This becomes automatic within a day or two.
2. Use AltGr+' for a literal apostrophe and AltGr+Shift+' for a literal double quote on the Linux layout.
3. Switch to the AltGr dead keys variant on Linux, where ' and " are never dead.

Word processors that convert straight quotes into curly ones will usually mask the problem anyway, because their autocorrect fires on the finished character.

The other adjustment: on some laptops the right Alt key is missing or remapped. Ctrl+Alt works as AltGr on this layout, though it can collide with application shortcuts.

US International or Alt codes?

Your situation	Better choice
You write Spanish, French or Portuguese most days	US International
You need one accented name in one email a month	Alt codes for accented letters: the complete verified list
You have no numeric keypad	US International, easily
You cannot change settings on a work or school machine	Alt codes, or the Win+. panel
You need Polish, Czech, Turkish or Vietnamese letters	That language’s own layout, not this one

That last row matters. US International covers the Western European set only. Letters like ł, ą, ř, ğ and ș are not on it, so read How to type accents on Windows (Alt codes and layouts) for the alternatives, or add the specific language layout. The Polish and Czech hubs list what each language actually needs.

Once the layout is installed, the rest is muscle memory. If you inherit documents where the accents are already wrong, Remove accents from text and Add accents to text will clean them up faster than retyping, and you can look up any single letter from Accent Letter or read How to type accents on any keyboard for the wider picture.