Upside-down Or Spanish Exclamation Mark In Word - Office Watch

Skip to content Menu Upside-down or Spanish Exclamation mark in Word Office-Watch.comLast updated: 28 July 2022 Microsoft 365,Microsoft Office,Microsoft Office for Mac,Microsoft Word,Office 2003,Office 2007,Office 2010,Office 2013,Office 2016,Office 2019,Office 2021 / Office LTSC,Office 365

The inverted or Spanish exclamation mark ¡ is available in Microsoft Word, regardless of language setting. There’s even an in-built shortcut.

¡ is most commonly used in Spanish for the start of an exclaiming sentence.

As far back as the 1660’s there have been attempts to introduce ¡ inverted exclamation to denote irony. Despite its usefulness in some modern media (like texting or social media), it’s never caught on.

On a Spanish language keyboard the inverted exclamation mark is easily typed (usually AltGr + 1)

This guide is mostly for people without a Spanish keyboard or who only occasionally need the inverted exclamation mark/point.

See also Explore five (yes FIVE) different Exclamation Mark ! in Word

Inverted Exclamation Codes

Upside-down or inverted exclamation is part of the ‘old’ ASCII character standard and now part of Unicode.

ASCII: 161 (decimal)

Unicode: 00A1 or A1 (hex) 0161 (decimal)

HTML: ¡

Word Shortcut

In Microsoft Word for Windows, there’s a shortcut to type inverted exclamation:

Ctrl + Alt + ! 

In practice you’ll need four fingers  Ctrl + Alt + Shift + 1

Or use the Alt + X trick:  type A1 then press Alt + X

Mac shortcut for ¡

On Mac computers there’s a shortcut to type inverted exclamation in any app, not just Word.

Option + 1

Just two fingers needed.

Explore five (yes FIVE) different Exclamation Mark ! in Word

The Old Alt + X trick

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