É / é (E With an Acute Accent): How to Type, Copy, and Use It
é is a lowercase e with an acute accent, the small stroke that leans to the right. Its capital is É. It’s one of the most common accented letters anywhere, carried by French, Spanish, Portuguese, and plenty of English loanwords like café and résumé.
If you just need the character, copy é or É from the grid below. You can also grab its HTML entity or URL code straight from there, which the rest of this page explains and most guides leave out.
Further down you’ll find how to type é on every device, when English words keep the accent, how é behaves in web addresses and code, and how it differs from è, ê, and ë.
In a hurry?
- Copy it: click é or É in the grid below.
- On Windows: hold Alt and type 0233 for é (0201 for É).
- On a Mac: press Option + e, then press e again.
- On a phone: press and hold the e key, then slide to é.
- In a URL é is written %C3%A9; in HTML it’s é.
Click to copy: é, and its codes
Grab the letter, the HTML entity, or the URL code
Table of Contents
Copy and paste é
The two characters, with every code you’re likely to need in one row. Use the grid above to copy with a click; this table is the reference.
| Character | Name | Unicode | Windows | Mac | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| é | e with acute | U+00E9 | Alt + 0233 | Option + e, e | é |
| É | E with acute | U+00C9 | Alt + 0201 | Option + e, Shift + E | É |
How to type é on any device
é sits in the old Latin range, so it’s easy to reach almost everywhere.
Windows
Turn on Num Lock, hold Alt, and type 0233 on the numeric keypad for é, or 0201 for É. The top-row numbers won’t work; it has to be the keypad.
For regular use, switch to the US-International layout and type an apostrophe (‘) then e. You can also press Windows + . and pick é from the symbol panel.
Mac
Press Option + e together and let go; nothing shows yet. Press e again and é appears. For the capital, it’s Option + e, then Shift + E. Holding the e key down also brings up a small menu with é on it.
iPhone and Android
Press and hold the e key on the on-screen keyboard, then slide onto é and lift your finger. Nothing to set up, and it works the same in nearly every app.
Microsoft Word
Press Ctrl + ‘ (the apostrophe), let go, then press e. Add Shift on the e for É. The Windows Alt code works here too.
Linux
Press Ctrl + Shift + U, type 00e9, then press Enter. With a Compose key, it’s Compose, then ‘, then e.
Excel and Google Sheets
Use the Alt code on the keypad, or the UNICHAR formula: =UNICHAR(233) returns é and =UNICHAR(201) returns É. The same works in Google Sheets.
é vs è, ê, and ë: which accent when
The four accents on e look alike but do different jobs, and mixing them up is the most common e-accent mistake.
é (acute) is a closed, tight vowel, the pure “ay” in French été (“summer”) and café. è (grave) is its open partner, the “eh” in père (“father”) and très (“very”). ê (circumflex) usually marks a letter, often an s, that fell out of the older spelling, as in forêt from forest. ë (diaeresis) tells you to sound the e on its own, as in Noël.
Spanish keeps it simpler: it uses only é, and only to mark the stressed syllable, as in bebé (“baby”) and inglés (“English”). If a word carries è or ê, it isn’t Spanish.
| Accent | Letter | Sound or job | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acute | é | a closed “ay”; Spanish stress | café |
| Grave | è | an open “eh” | père (“father”) |
| Circumflex | ê | often a dropped s | forêt (“forest”) |
| Diaeresis | ë | pronounce it separately | Noël |
For the full set of accented e’s and how to type each one, see the e with accent guide.
English words that use é
English has quietly borrowed a whole shelf of words that keep their é, mostly from French. Careful writing keeps the accent; casual writing often drops it, sometimes at a cost to clarity.
| Word | Meaning or note |
|---|---|
| café | a coffee shop |
| résumé | a CV; the accents keep it distinct from the verb resume |
| cliché | an overused phrase |
| exposé | a revealing report |
| fiancé / fiancée | a man / a woman engaged to marry |
| née | born (before a maiden name) |
| soufflé | a light baked dish |
| protégé | someone mentored by another |
| attaché | an embassy officer, or a slim case |
| touché | a fair point, well made |
The accent shows up in famous names too. Beyoncé and Pokémon both carry an é, and dropping it, as many keyboards nudge people to do, technically changes the spelling. When you need one of these, the copy grid at the top is the fastest fix. And yes, résumé properly takes two accents; resumé with one is a common variant, and the bare resume is widely accepted in American English, though it reads the same as the verb.
é in web addresses, URLs, and email
You can put é in a domain name. café.com is a valid address, but the domain name system only handles plain ASCII, so it’s stored as a Punycode name beginning with xn--, which the browser turns back into é for you.
Inside a URL path or query, é is percent-encoded as %C3%A9, the two UTF-8 bytes (0xC3 and 0xA9) for the character written out. The capital É is %C3%89. A link with %C3%A9 tucked inside has an é in it.
Email is more cautious. An address can technically carry é through the same system, but many mail servers still stumble over non-ASCII addresses, so it’s safest to keep é out of an email address unless you know both ends support it.
é in code and passwords
In code, é is an ordinary Unicode character and works fine in strings and comments. The usual snag is encoding: a file saved as UTF-8 but read as Latin-1 turns é into é, the classic sign of a crossed encoding rather than a broken character.
Passwords are the place to be careful. A é in a password can lock you out on another device, because a different keyboard or login form may encode the character differently and produce different bytes. For a password you’ll type across systems, plain ASCII is the safer bet.
When you want é in code, the escapes help: \u00e9 in JavaScript, Java, and JSON, \u00e9 in Python, and é or é in HTML.
How é is pronounced and where it’s used
é is a closed front vowel, written /e/. In French it’s a crisp, pure “ay” without the English glide, the sound at the end of café. In Spanish it’s simply the letter e, marked because it lands on the stressed syllable.
It’s one of the most common accented letters in the world, used by French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Czech, and many more. Most software sorts é as a plain e, so café files right next to cafe, unlike a letter such as the Spanish ñ, which gets its own place in the alphabet.
Copy-paste HTML codes
Everything you need for the web and for links, in one place. Click a cell and copy.
| Character | Named entity | Numeric entity | URL (percent) code |
|---|---|---|---|
| é | é | é | %C3%A9 |
| É | É | É | %C3%89 |
In a CSS content value, use the escaped code point \00e9. Serve the page as UTF-8 so the character holds. For é in the wider Spanish set, see how to type Spanish letters; for the sibling á and the full list, follow the links.
Troubleshooting
“My é shows up as é or a box.”
The text was saved as UTF-8 but is being read as an older encoding like Latin-1. Set the file or page to UTF-8 and the é returns. The é pattern is the classic UTF-8-read-as-Latin-1 mix-up.
“Alt + 0233 just beeps or types nothing.”
Num Lock is off, you’re using the top-row numbers, or the laptop has no keypad. Turn Num Lock on and use the keypad. No keypad? Use the copy grid, the US-International layout, or Windows + .
“Shift with the Alt code gives the wrong letter.”
The capital has its own code. Don’t hold Shift with 0233; type 0201 on its own for É.
“A password with é won’t log me in elsewhere.”
Different keyboards and login forms can encode é differently, so the bytes may not match what you first set. For a password you’ll type on many devices, stick to plain ASCII.
FAQ
How do I type é?
On Windows, Alt + 0233 (Alt + 0201 for É). On a Mac, Option + e then e. On a phone, long-press the e key. Or click it in the grid above.
What’s the difference between é and è?
The direction of the mark and the sound. é (acute) leans right and is a closed “ay”; è (grave) leans left and is an open “eh.” In French they’re different sounds and not interchangeable.
Does résumé need the accents?
Properly it takes two: résumé. The one-accent resumé is a common variant, and the bare resume is widely accepted in American English, though it looks identical to the verb. The accents remove that ambiguity.
How do I write é in a URL or HTML?
In a URL, é is %C3%A9 (É is %C3%89), and domains store it as Punycode beginning with xn--. In HTML, use é or é.
How do you pronounce é?
In French it’s a closed, pure “ay” sound, /e/, as at the end of café. In Spanish it’s the ordinary e, just marked as the stressed syllable.
