french-keyboard-settings

Get rid of the É instead of question mark

Get Rid of É on Keyboard

Find yourself typing away and go to hit the Question Mark and have É instead?

  • press CTRL+SHIFT (press CTRL first and while holding press SHIFT, sometimes you have to do it twice in a row to disable.)

Should be back to normal keyboard. To disable permanently read below.

Disable permanently:

  1. There’s two ways to do this. Right click on the keyboard icon and left click Settings. Select the “Advanced Key Settings” tab. Click the “Change Key Sequence” button and select “not assigned” from . Click OK a few times and you’re done.
    change keyboard settings
  2. If you cannot locate the keyboard icon you can get at this through the control panel.
    • Go to Regional and Language control panel.
    • Select the keyboards and languages tab and click the change keyboards button.

This takes you to the language settings described in step 2 above.

 


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Posted in How-to, Operating System, Technology Blog, Tutorials and tagged , , .

Patrick O'Keeffe

Patrick is the founder, developer and chief blogger of Victoria Web Solutions. Passionate about technology, design and customer satisfaction. Read more about Patrick on his Team page.

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145 Comments

  1. Thank you, Patrick and team! I have a neighbour who is Parisian ( a French speaking lady) and I always what to spell her name correctly with I send her an email or write her a note. I wanted to know how to go back and forth with the accent over the e(s) in her name. I usually copy and paste her name from the emails that she sends to me but after doing so, I can’t drop the accent over the e! You have taught me how to press shift and ctrl a couple of times to get back to normal on my keyboard. I appreciate your help!

  2. I am at witès end (seeÉ) None of the above worked, also tried signing in, signing out, rebooting. Please help. Ièd be so grateful!

  3. Windows 10. On the bottom right of the Task Bar is the language ikon. Click on it and make sure it’s on English Canada or English US and not Not Canadian Multiligual Standar.

  4. Pingback: Get rid of the É instead of question mark for Windows 10 | Website Design Victoria BC Canada Victoria Web Solutions

  5. Thank you for the tip. It worked for me and I shall not forget. I often need it as it’s the proper letter to spell my daughter’s name but never knew how to get rid of it or how to get it! Really appreciate this.

  6. Dear Patric, i’m using MacBook Pro and canadian french keyboard. I tried what you taught. but it is not working out for me. É keeps coming up, instead of question mark. So frustrating. HelpÉ (Alright, wanted to type a question mark, but it’s just not coming up 🙂 )

    • Hi there – sorry you’re having troubles. Please try pressing “e” while holding the “option” key, take your finger off the option key then press “e” again. See if this works for you?

  7. This happened today when my fat fingers pressed the magic key combination to generate E acute rather than the usual ? mark. Much appreciated!

  8. Hi there, this did not work. If I go to Control Panel to click on keyboard (no icon in Windows 10), it does not give me and of these options.
    Any suggestions?

  9. Thanks very much Patrick!
    I was stuck on that quite a few times and I could only restart my PC to render the issue.
    That is not convenient most times of course.

    A little fix goes a long way..isn’t that a quote?..or close?
    It is now, and that fix fixed me on 5/11/2018

    Thanks Again Patrick!

    • Hi Jenni – this may be the French Canadian or other keyboard you have enabled? Check your keyboard settings in the system tray, beside the time and change to the correct keyboard. Hope that helps?

  10. Thank you so much, Patrick!!
    I appreciate your help. Your advice worked perfectly.
    I hadn’t ever done this before but it was SO annoying…and no matter what I tried,
    I couldn’t fix it!
    I’m so appreciative of these kinds of sites that always help me out when I need it!
    Thank you!!!!

    Lisa : )

  11. This is literally the most frustrating thing. The crtl + shift doesnt work. Theres no keyboard icon. Theres no change keyboards button. What am I supposed to do

  12. Thank you Thank you. I was able to get my Dell keyboard to disable the French key and have a question mark, double quotes etc. by using you website suggestion. I had to press the Ctrl and Shift several times before I got it to work.
    Great thank you.

  13. OMG! this just totally saved me so much pain.. i would reboot my PC every time this stupid thing would show up.. thanks… 🙂

  14. Pingback: How To Get Rid Of Accented Letters On Keyboard | Information

  15. Great! Thank you so much, I found finally easy fix with your help.
    The only thing I can’t find how to delete it permanently in my win 8 ( switch to “Not assigned).
    Keyboard icon does not show these properties and no Regional and Language Options on my win 8 ( Separate Language and Region)

    • Hi Boris – glad we could help you with a easy fix! For changing it permanently, try this:

      In “Control Panel” | “Clock, Language and Region” | “Language” click “Advanced Settings” in the left pane.
      In “Advanced settings” click “Change Language bar hot keys”
      In “Text Services and Input Languages” click “Change Key Sequence” button and disable the the key sequence by selecting the “Not Assigned” radio buttons

      Let me know if that works?
      Patrick

  16. Pingback: How To Get Rid Of French Accent E | Information

  17. Pingback: French Keyboard How To Get Rid Of | Information

  18. Every time my kid plays on Steam this happens to me and I WAS rebooting my pc to fix it… this is much easier, thanks a heap!

  19. Hello,

    I am having trouble removing these symbols from when I type question marks (Éé). Please help!

    I believe I am using Windows 10 on a newer HP desktop.

    Thank you!

  20. Pingback: How To Get Rid Of Weird Symbols In Word 2003 | WorldsBank

  21. Thank you soo much. Helped soo much on skype when i put a ? it would put the weird thing then id seem like an idiot xD

  22. Thank you!!!!! I was in the middle of some assignment when my keyboard setting changed… Thank you for your tip that you have posted here to help many like us. :))

  23. Hi there! This blog post couldn’t be written any better!
    Reading through this post reminds me of my previous roommate!
    He always kept talking about this. I most certainly will send this information to
    him. Pretty sure he’ll have a good read. Thank you for sharing!

  24. If it didn’t work for you it may be because you went through your control panel and changed the key sequence to “not assign” and “not assign” before pressing ctrl + shift to make your keyboard go back to normal.

    You need to first see what your key sequence is to make your keyboard go back to normal Control Panel > Language and Regions > change keyboard > change sequence. Then you press that key sequence once your keyboard is back to normal, then you may click “not assign” to disable your keyboard from change the key functions.

  25. Hi again Patrick, Please note that I managed to solve the problem. In the end, I simply shut down the computer and re-opened it and it must have gone back to default… I can’t believe that I never thought of the old “re-boot” in the first place. Using IT Help 101!

    Thank you for looking into it for me!

    ??? (just to prove that it worked 🙂

    John

  26. Hi Patrick, unfortunately this didnèt work for me. Do you have any other suggestionsÉ (As you can see the apostrophe and question mark are not working, as they still are showing french accents, even though I only have the Canada-U.S. language and the International U.S. language chosen (nor French language). I live in Canada. Any other thoughtsÉ

    Not sure if it matters; but I am using an Acer Aspire One computer. It was working fine until I hit something by accident and then I messed around with the languages, as per your suggestions.

    The odd thing is that the symbols work properly when I am in Word 2003 (yep, a bit old); but not in my Yahoo emails or when I complete forms online. Please advise.

    Thank you!

  27. I simply want to mention I am beginner to blogging and site-building and actually liked this page. Very likely I’m going to bookmark your blog post . You certainly come with great writings. With thanks for sharing with us.

  28. THANK YOU!!!
    This has been driving me nuts for months. It’s such a relief to permanently solve this problem.

  29. Thank you so much. I did a lot of searching over the Internet before I came across your simple instructions to permanently disable that feature.

  30. THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
    I was able to get my HP keyboard to disable the French key and have a question mark by using your website suggestion.
    Great.
    MB

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