How to check which fonts support accented letters

A font may look fine for ordinary English text but show a box, a blank space, or an odd-looking letter when you type a name such as José or Zoë. If you work with several languages, check the characters you actually need before choosing a font.

The Installed Fonts tool lists fonts on your computer and lets you preview your own text. Use it to compare accented letters across fonts. It works in Chrome and Edge on a computer. Other browsers may show a reduced version or no font list.

Check accented letters in your fonts

1. Open the Installed Fonts tool in Chrome or Edge on your computer.
2. Enter or paste a sample containing the exact letters you need. For a quick Latin alphabet check, try ÁÉÍÓÚ áéíóú Ññ Üü Çç Åå Øø Ææ. Add any language-specific letters, names, or words you expect to use.
3. Look through the listed fonts and compare how each one displays the sample. Pay particular attention to letters with accents, dots, or other marks, and check that the accent is present and positioned clearly.
4. Repeat with a few fonts and with the styles you plan to use, such as regular and bold. Make a note of the font names that display your sample well.

A short sample is useful for an initial check, but it cannot cover every language. Add the actual text or alphabet you need, especially if you are preparing a multilingual document, a product label, or a list of customer names.

What the result means

The accented characters look complete and consistent

The preview shows that the text can be rendered with those characters on your computer. Check the letter shapes at the size you intend to use, too. A font may contain a character but make its accent hard to read at small sizes.

A character appears as a box, blank space, or replacement symbol

The selected font may not have a usable glyph for that character. A glyph is the visual shape used to display a character. Try another font and compare the same sample. If the problem appears only in bold or italic, that particular font style may be missing the character even when the regular style has it.

The character appears, but looks different from the other letters

Your browser may be using a fallback font for that character. A fallback is another font chosen automatically when the selected font lacks a glyph. The character can appear on screen even though it is not actually included in the font you meant to test. Look for a sudden change in stroke thickness, height, or style around the accented letter.

The font is not listed

The tool can show only fonts available to the browser on that device. Confirm that the font is installed, then refresh the tool. If you are using a phone or a browser other than Chrome or Edge, try again on a computer in Chrome or Edge.

How to choose or fix the font

1. Test the real text. A font that covers common Spanish or French accents may not include every character used in Polish, Vietnamese, or another language. Paste the names and words you expect to publish instead of relying on a short sample alone.
2. Try a different font style. Check regular, bold, and italic separately. If one style fails, use a style that displays correctly or choose a font family whose needed styles include the characters.
3. Install a font if you need it. Get the font from a source you trust and check its license before using it. On Windows 11, open Settings › Personalization › Fonts to manage installed fonts. On macOS, open Font Book and use File › Add Fonts to Current User to add a font file.
4. Choose the font in the app you are using. Installing a font does not always make an existing document or design switch to it. Select the font in the app, then check the accented text again. A website or another person's computer may not have that font installed, so use a suitable fallback or embed the font if the app and license allow it.
5. Check the file if the visual result is unclear. Browser previews can use fallback fonts, so seeing a character is not absolute proof that the selected font contains it. For a definitive check, inspect the font's character map or glyph list in a font viewer or font-editing application.

Why one sample is not enough

Accented letters are not one single set shared by every language. For example, a font may include é and ñ but omit ł or Vietnamese vowel combinations. Even within one language, names and borrowed words can use less common characters. Use the characters that matter to your project as the final test.

Some text also represents an accented letter in more than one way: as a single precomposed character or as a base letter followed by a combining mark. Most users do not need to check this distinction. If pasted text behaves differently from text typed in the app, test the exact source text and ask the person who supplied it whether it uses combining marks.

The Installed Fonts preview is a useful way to compare fonts available on your computer, but it cannot guarantee that a recipient's device or an app will render the same font without fallback.