Accenter

This bare-bones application offers a quick way to add a few special accents to characters you type, although it lacks a few features that would enhance its usefulness. While the program is so simple it technically doesn't need a help file, we would have liked more guidance during installation (you have to extract both the EXE and the DLL to a folder to get the app to work.) Accenter docks itself in the system tray, and when opened, the interface is composed simply of start and stop buttons that don't render properly due to some funky characters. Placing the cursor at the right side of a character and pressing F6 or F7 cycles through four available accents, including the accent grave and the umlaut. Accenter works in many Windows applications such as Notepad, Office, Web browsers, dialog boxes, and chat programs. However, this program would have been more useful if it included a larger list of accents and special characters, a right-click dropdown list for faster selection, and HTML code for accents. Users who regularly insert accents into text will find this free utility does what it promises, though it's nowhere close to a must-have.