Ó / ó (O With Acute Accent): How to Type and Copy It
The letter ó is an o with an acute accent, the stroke leaning to the right. You’ll see it across Spanish (adiós, canción), Polish, Irish, Czech, Hungarian, and more. It isn’t on an English keyboard, so this page gives you the quickest way to type it on any device, a click-to-copy grid, and a few things other guides skip — including why, in Polish, ó sounds nothing like a normal o.
If you just need the character, copy ó (or the capital Ó) from the grid below. If you want the shortcuts, or to understand what the accent is doing, the sections after it cover both.
In a hurry?
- Copy it: click ó in the grid below.
- On Windows: hold Alt and type 0243 (capital Ó is 0211).
- On a Mac: press Option + E, then o.
- On a phone: press and hold the o key and choose ó.
- In Word: press Ctrl + ‘ (apostrophe), then o.
Table of Contents
Copy and paste ó
The accented o in both cases, with the codes you’re likely to need. Use the grid above to copy with one click; this table is the reference.
| Character | Name | Unicode | Windows | Mac | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ó | o with acute (lower) | U+00F3 | Alt + 0243 | Option + E, o | ó |
| Ó | O with acute (upper) | U+00D3 | Alt + 0211 | Option + E, Shift + O | Ó |
The accent isn’t on an English keyboard, so ó takes a shortcut, a code, or a copy. The sections below cover each device, then what the accent actually means.
How to type ó on any device
The acute-accented o isn’t on the keys, so here’s the quickest way to make one on each system.
Type ó on Windows
Use the Alt code: turn on Num Lock, hold Alt, and type 0243 on the numeric keypad for ó, or 0211 for the capital Ó. (The shorter Alt + 162 also gives ó.) If you type accents often, the US-International keyboard lets you press an apostrophe then o to get ó directly.
Type ó on Mac
On a Mac, press Option + E (nothing appears yet — that arms the acute accent), then press o, and ó appears. For the capital, do Option + E, then Shift + o. The same two-step works for the other acute vowels: á, é, í, ú.
Type ó on iPhone and Android
Press and hold the o key on the on-screen keyboard. A small row of accented options pops up; slide onto ó and lift your finger. It’s the same long-press trick that works for every accented letter on a phone.
Type ó in Microsoft Word
Word has a built-in accent shortcut: press Ctrl + ‘ (Ctrl and the apostrophe key), release, then press o, and you get ó. For the capital, add Shift on the letter. You can also type 00F3 then Alt + X, or use the Windows Alt code.
Type ó on Linux
Press Ctrl + Shift + U, type 00f3, then Enter. With a Compose key, Compose then ‘ (apostrophe) then o also makes ó.
Type ó in HTML and CSS
In HTML, ó is ó or the numeric ó (capital Ó is Ó). In CSS, a literal ó in a content value is the escaped code point \00F3.
What the accent on ó actually means
The same stroke does different jobs in different languages. Reading it right depends on knowing which one you’re looking at.
In Spanish and Portuguese, the acute mostly marks the stressed syllable. In Irish, the accent (a fada) makes the vowel long. In Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian, ó is likewise a long o. And in Polish, ó does something stranger: it changes the sound entirely, to something like an oo — which is its own section below.
| Language | What ó does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | stressed syllable | adiós (goodbye) |
| Portuguese | stressed / closed o | avó (grandmother) |
| Irish | long vowel (fada) | beoló |
| Hungarian | long o | jó (good) |
| Polish | sounds like “oo” | góra (mountain) |
Why ó sounds like ‘oo’ in Polish
Here’s the fact that surprises everyone, and that no keyboard guide mentions: in Polish, the letter ó is not pronounced like an o at all. It sounds the same as the Polish letter u — an “oo” sound, as in boot. So the word góra (“mountain”) is said roughly “goo-ra,” not “gaw-ra.”
The reason is history. Centuries ago this ó really was a distinct, longer o sound, and the accent recorded that length. Over time the pronunciation drifted until it merged completely with u, but the spelling stayed frozen. That’s why Polish has two letters for one sound (ó and u), and why Polish children — and learners — have to memorise which words take ó and which take u, since your ear can’t tell them apart. It’s called “o kreskowane” (o with a stroke), and it’s one of the trickiest bits of Polish spelling for exactly this reason.
ó in Spanish: the accent and the stress rule
In Spanish, the ó almost always signals a stressed syllable, and there’s a rule behind when it appears. Spanish stress is regular by default: words ending in a vowel, n, or s are normally stressed on the second-to-last syllable. When a word breaks that pattern, and is stressed on the last syllable while ending in a vowel, n, or s, a written accent marks it.
That’s why so many everyday words carry ó: adiós, canción, corazón, limón, bombón. Each ends in -ón or -ós with the stress on that final syllable, so the accent is required. Drop it and the word is technically misspelled, and a reader may stress the wrong part. The accent isn’t optional flair here; it’s the rule doing its job.
ó vs ò, ô, õ, ö: the five accented o’s
The o wears five different marks across European languages, and they are five different letters, not styles of the same one. Telling them apart saves you from picking the wrong character.
The acute ó (this page) marks stress or a long/closed o. The grave ò leans the other way and appears in Italian and Catalan. The circumflex ô, the little hat, shows up in French and Portuguese. The tilde õ, the wave, is a nasal o in Portuguese. And the umlaut ö, the two dots, is a rounded front vowel in German, Swedish, Hungarian, and Turkish.
| Letter | Accent | Used in |
|---|---|---|
| ó | acute | Spanish, Polish, Irish |
| ò | grave | Italian, Catalan |
| ô | circumflex | French, Portuguese |
| õ | tilde | Portuguese, Estonian |
| ö | umlaut / diaeresis | German, Swedish, Turkish |
So if you meant the Spanish stress accent, ó is the one; if a word looked “off,” you may have grabbed one of the other four. Copy the correct ó from the grid above.
ó in code, URLs, and domain names
The accented o shows up in filenames, URLs, and web addresses. In a URL, ó is percent-encoded as %C3%B3 (its two UTF-8 bytes), so a page about canción might appear as canci%C3%B3n in the address bar. In code, the escape is \u00F3 in JavaScript, Java, JSON, and Python.
Domains can include ó through internationalized domain names (IDN), which are converted behind the scenes to an ASCII Punycode form beginning xn--. Because an accented letter can be made to resemble a plain one, browsers sometimes display the Punycode as an anti-phishing safeguard. And if ó ever renders as ó or a box, the cause is the usual one: serve the page as UTF-8.
Copy-paste HTML codes
Every code for the acute-accented o in one place. Click a cell and copy.
| Character | Named entity | Numeric entity | URL (percent) code |
|---|---|---|---|
| ó | ó | ó | %C3%B3 |
| Ó | Ó | Ó | %C3%93 |
In a CSS content value, use \00F3 for ó. For the rest of the accented vowels, see [a with acute](/a-with-acute/), [i with acute](/i-with-acute/), and the full [letters with accents](/letters-with-accents/) hub; for Spanish specifically, [type Spanish letters](/type-spanish-letters/).
Troubleshooting
My ó shows as ó or a box
That’s an encoding mismatch: the UTF-8 bytes for ó are being read as an older encoding. Set the file, database, and page charset to UTF-8 and ó displays correctly.
Option + E just types an e on my Mac
Option + E arms the accent but shows nothing on its own; you have to press o straight after. If it still fails, your keyboard layout may not support dead keys; switch to the standard US or ABC layout.
Alt + 0243 isn’t working
Make sure Num Lock is on and you’re using the numeric keypad, not the top-row numbers. On a laptop without a keypad, use Windows + . and search, or copy ó from the grid above.
Should ó be pronounced like an o?
It depends on the language. In Spanish and Irish it’s an o (stressed or long); in Polish it sounds like u (“oo”). So the same letter is read differently depending on where the word comes from.
FAQ
How do I type ó?
On Windows, hold Alt and type 0243. On a Mac, press Option + E then o. On a phone, long-press the o key. In Word, press Ctrl + ‘ then o. Or click ó in the grid above.
What does the accent on ó mean?
It depends on the language. In Spanish and Portuguese it marks the stressed syllable; in Irish, Czech, and Hungarian it makes the vowel long; in Polish it changes the sound to “oo.” It’s not decorative.
Why does ó sound like ‘u’ in Polish?
Historically ó was a longer o that, over centuries, merged in sound with u. The spelling stayed, so Polish now has two letters (ó and u) for one “oo” sound, and which one a word uses has to be memorised.
What’s the difference between ó, ò, ô, õ, and ö?
They’re five different letters: ó acute (Spanish, Polish), ò grave (Italian), ô circumflex (French, Portuguese), õ tilde (Portuguese), and ö umlaut (German, Swedish). Each belongs to different languages and sounds.
How do I write ó in HTML?
Use ó or ó (capital Ó is Ó). In a URL, ó is percent-encoded as %C3%B3.
