jld55 wrote:
I want to insert accent marks directly on top of letters, e.g.,
"Alarcon" with the accent mark over the "o" rather than the mark
breaking up the word such as "Alarc[accent mark space]on" or
"Alarco[accent space]n" or Alarcon[accent mark after "n"]. This name
happens to be Hispanic. Do I need to switch to Spanish to get the
mark? I see a tildee in the Symbols menu and it works directly over
the "n". Another example is "de ja vu" (French) placing the regular
accent mark over the "e" and a backwards accent mark over the "a". I
see it printed this way in a dictionary.

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/InsertSpecChars.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org