Accented Latin Letters
Every accented letter used in French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and other Western European languages has a Windows Alt code, inherited from code page 1252, the character set Windows has shipped since version 3.1.
Letters from Central and Eastern European alphabets, Polish, Czech, Croatian and similar, mostly fall outside that original set and need their Unicode value instead. Both groups are listed together here, since a search for an accented letter rarely specifies which set it belongs to.
Questions
What is the Alt code for e with an acute accent?
Alt+0233 for the lowercase letter, Alt+0201 for the capital E.
Is there an Alt code for the Polish l with a stroke?
No. Code page 1252 does not include it. Use the HTML entity ł or copy the character directly.
Why does the same letter sometimes need a completely different code?
Capital and lowercase versions of an accented letter are separate characters in both the Alt code table and Unicode, each with its own number.
Is there one Alt code that adds an accent to any letter?
No. Windows treats each accented letter as its own character with its own code. There is no single “add an accent” combination the way some Mac and Linux input methods work.
Why does French use different accented letters from German?
Each language accents different sounds. French relies on acute, grave and circumflex marks over vowels, while German uses the umlaut and the sharp s, ß, which does not appear in French at all.