Spanish Keyboard Tester (Spain Layout)

What the Spanish layout adds

On a keyboard bought in Spain the letters sit where they do on a US keyboard, Enter is the tall ISO key and < > gets a key of its own by left Shift. The differences are around the letters:

• Ñ sits right of L, followed by the accent key ´ ¨ and Ç next to Enter.
• º ª is the key left of 1, and ' ? and ¡ ¿ follow 0.
• ` ^ and + * sit right of P.
• With Shift, 1 to 0 give ! " · $ % & / ( ) =.
• AltGr adds \ | @ # ~ € ¬ on the key left of 1 and on 1 to 6, [ ] and { } on the keys right of P and Ñ, and € on E.

Ñ appears in the event log as Semicolon, the accent key as Quote and Ç as Backslash.

Testing the accent keys

The ´ ¨ and ` ^ keys type nothing by themselves: each one adds its accent to the letter you type next, so ´ then a gives á. Pressed on their own they seem to do nothing, which makes a broken accent key hard to spot while typing. Here they light up the moment they register, no letter needed. Check both with and without Shift, since ü and ê depend on the Shift half.

Spain or Latin America?

Windows has two Spanish keyboards. “Spanish” matches keyboards sold in Spain, as drawn here. “Latin American” is the default for Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and the other Latin American regions, and also for Spanish (United States). Both have Ñ, but the Latin American one moves many symbols: @ is AltGr+Q, # is Shift+3, the key left of 1 types | ° ¬, and there is no Ç key.

So a keyboard from Spain on a computer set up for Latin America types odd symbols, and the other way round. If Ñ types ; instead, the computer is on a US layout. The keys are fine in all these cases; only the setting differs.

The Spanish keys at a glance

These keys differ from a US keyboard. The browser code is the name the key sends in the event log, taken from the US key in the same place. Letter keys type capitals with Shift. AltGr is the right Alt key; on Windows, Ctrl+Alt does the same.