Portuguese

Almost all applications support Portuguese accents. Guidelines for typing and using accents are given below.  If you need to refer to additional characters, look under the Accents section.

Thanks to Ingrid Truemper for her technical assistance.

About Portuguese

Due to early colonialization from Portugal, forms of Portuguese can be found in South America (Brazil), Africa (Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, etc) and the South Pacific (East Timor).

Over the centuries, some of the Portuguese forms have diverged quite a bit, especially in Brazil versus Portugal (or European/Continental Portugues). The differences in spelling and grammar are significant enough that some translaters recommend separate documents for a Brazilian market versus a Portuguese market.

Note: Speakers in the U.S. learning Portuguese typically Brazilian Portuguese, which is now considered the prestige standard.

References

• What’s the Difference Between European and Brazilian Portuguese
• Portuguese Translations, What Clients Need to Know

Galician

Galician is a language closely related to Portuguese, but spoken within the Galicia province of Spain. Information about Galician is located on the Spanish page.

Windows ALT Codes

In Windows, combinations of the ALT key plus a numeric code from the number keypad can be used to type a non-English character in any Windows application.

See the detailed instructions on the ALT Code How To for complete information on implementing the code. Additional options for entering accents in Windows are also listed in the Accents section of this Web site.

Quick Examples

1. To input capital Á (ALT+0193), hold down the ALT key then type 0193 (all four digits) on the numeric keypad. The ALT codes do not work with the row of number keys on the top.
2. To input lowercase á (ALT+0225), change the code from 0193 to 0225.

See the ALT Code How To for complete information on implementing the code.

Windows International Keyboard Codes

In order to use these codes you must activate the U.S. international keyboard.

Once the U.S. International keyboard has been activated, you can use the codes below.

Accented Vowels

This list is organized by Accent type. For the Template, the symbol "V" means type any vowel.

Windows International Keyboard Codes for Portuguese

ACCENT	SAMPLE	TEMPLATE	NOTES
Acute	á Á	‘, V	‘ = apostrophe key
Circumflex	â Â	SHIFT+^, V
Grave	à À	`, V	` = left single quote
Tilde	ã Ã	SHIFT+~,V
Umlaut	ë Ë	", V	" = quote key

Example 1: To type lower case ó – Type the apostrophe key (‘), then O.  For capital Ó, type the apostrophe, then capital O.

Consonants and Puncutation

For these codes, you must make sure you use the Alt key on the right side of the keyboard.

Windows Portuguese Keyboard

If you wish to simulate a non U.S. keyboard, follow the instructions for Activating Keyboard Locales to activate and switch Microsoft keyboards.

Macintosh Accent Codes

Accented Vowels

The
format is to hold the first two keys down simultaneously, release, then
type the vowel you wish to be accented. For the Template, the symbol "V" means any vowel.

Macintosh Option Codes for Portuguese

ACCENT	SAMPLE	TEMPLATE
Acute	á Á	Option+E, V
Circumflex	â Â	Option+I, V
Grave	à À	Option+`, V
Tilde	ã Ã	Option+N, V
Umlaut	ë Ë	Option+U, V

Example 1: To input the lower case ó, hold down the Option
key, then the E key. Release both keys then type lowercase o.
Example 2: To input the capital Ó, hold down the
Option key, then the E key. Release all three keys then
type capital O.

Other Characters

Portuguese Web Pages

Historical Encodings

Unicode (utf-8) is the preferred encoding for Web sites. However, the following historic encodings may still be encountered.

• iso-8859-1 (Latin 1),
• iso-8859-15 (adds support for the euro (€)
• win-1252

If possible, you should transition to Unicode.

Language Codes

Language Tags allow browsers and other software to process text more efficiently. They are also important for optimal screen reader accessibility.

Below are some common codes that might be used in the Francophone world.

Portuguese Variants by Country

• pt-BR (Brazilian Portuguese),
• pt-PT (European/Continental/Portugal)
• pt-AO (Angola)
• pt-CV (Cape Verde)
• pt-TL (East Timor)
• pt-GW (Guinea-Bissau)
• pt-MZ (Mozambique)
• pt-ST (São Tomé and Príncipe)
• Other country codes (ISO 3166-1-alpha-2)

HTML Accent Codes

Use these codes to input accented letters in HTML. For instance, if you
want to type São you would type São.

The numbers in parentheses are the numeric codes assigned in Unicode encoding. For instance, because ã is number 227, São can also be used to input São. These numbers are also used with the Windows Alt
codes listed above.

Links

Linux/Unix

Most content in Portuguese.

• Linux Accent Codes (English)
• BR-Linux.org
• Gentoo Linux Brasil
• Linux Portugal Org

Brazillian vs. European Portuguese

• What’s the Difference Between European and Brazilian Portuguese
• Portuguese Translations, What Clients Need to Know

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