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French Alphabet & Diacritic Reference

All 26 letters + 14 accented characters with typing shortcuts

A searchable reference of the 26-letter French alphabet plus its 14 accented and ligature characters, listing each character's accent name, Unicode code point, and macOS and Windows input shortcuts. Built for typists and language learners. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Last updated Source: Gera Tools

How many letters are in the French alphabet?

The French alphabet uses the same 26 base Latin letters as English. On top of those it uses accented forms and two ligatures, which are variants of base letters rather than separate alphabet entries.

The French Alphabet & Diacritic Reference lists every character you need to write French correctly: the 26 base letters and the 14 accented vowels, cedilla, and ligatures, each with its accent name, Unicode code point, and the exact keystrokes for macOS and Windows. Filter by letter or accent name, then click any character to copy it.

How it works

French is written with the standard 26-letter Latin alphabet plus a fixed set of diacritics applied to certain letters:

  • Acute (accent aigu) on é only.
  • Grave (accent grave) on à, è, ù.
  • Circumflex (accent circonflexe) on â, ê, î, ô, û.
  • Diaeresis (tréma) on ë, ï, ü, ÿ, marking a separately pronounced vowel.
  • Cedilla (cédille) on ç, giving a soft /s/ sound before a, o, u.
  • Ligatures œ (e dans l’o) and æ.

Each entry stores the Unicode code point (e.g. é = U+00E9), the macOS dead-key sequence (Option+E then E), and the Windows Alt code (Alt+0233).

Quick typing shortcuts

CharacterAccentmacOS shortcutWindows Alt code
éAcuteOption+E, then EAlt+0233
èGraveOption+`, then EAlt+0232
êCircumflexOption+I, then EAlt+0234
ëDiaeresisOption+U, then EAlt+0235
àGraveOption+`, then AAlt+0224
âCircumflexOption+I, then AAlt+0226
çCedillaOption+CAlt+0231
œLigatureOption+QAlt+0156

Windows Alt codes use Code Page 1252 values and require Num Lock on with a physical numeric keypad.

Why French uses diacritics

French diacritics are not decorative — they carry meaning. The acute accent on é marks a closed vowel sound distinct from the open e in est. The grave accent distinguishes homophones in writing: a (has, verb) versus à (at, preposition), and ou (or) versus où (where). The circumflex historically marked a vowel followed by a letter s that was later dropped from the French spelling: forêt (forest), hôpital (hospital). The tréma signals that two adjacent vowels should be pronounced separately: naïve, Noël.

Understanding these functions helps learners remember when to use each accent, rather than memorising them as arbitrary decoration.

Entering accents efficiently

On macOS, the fastest method depends on your workflow. For regular typing, the press-and-hold approach (hold the base vowel key until the picker appears) is intuitive but slow. The Option dead-key method is faster once memorised: Option+E acts as a “sticky” acute accent, and the next vowel you type receives it. Many French-speaking professionals on macOS simply switch to the French - PC keyboard layout in System Settings, which places accented characters at standard AZERTY positions.

On Windows, the US-International keyboard layout is the most practical option for English-speakers who also type French. It turns the apostrophe, backtick, caret, and tilde keys into dead keys for their corresponding accents. Type the accent key, then the base letter: ' + e = é. The only side effect is that typing a lone apostrophe now requires pressing it followed by Space.

Tips and notes

On macOS you can press and hold a vowel key to pop up an accent picker, which is often faster than dead keys. The Alt codes shown use the decimal Code Page 1252 values and require a physical numeric keypad with Num Lock on. Code points are given so you can also use your platform’s Unicode hex input where supported. For removing accents to produce plain ASCII — for URLs, filenames, or legacy systems — see the companion French Diacritic Remover tool.