Converting your laptop keyboard to Spanish

I just got a new Dell laptop and have been unimpressed by the lack of the numeric keyboard, which I could access on my old HP laptop by pressing the fn button. I figured it was time for me to change my keyboard settings to Spanish, instead of using the numeric keyboard and alt functions for Spanish characters. So far it has worked out well not having to deal with the several keystrokes necessary to toggle between different keyboard settings.

In Windows 7 I went to my Control Panel and clicked on "Clock, Language, and Region." From there click on "Change keyboards and other input methods." Then, a new window will pop up with the proper "Language and Keyboards" tab selected. Click on "Change Keyboards." From here you will be able to add a language if it isn't already installed. My laptop came with only English (US) installed. Click on "Add" to find your language. Once you've done that, click on "Apply." Then, click on the "Language Bar" tab to change where the language bar shows up. This bar will help you switch from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English.

Once you've switched to a Spanish keyboard, you can write 'ñ' by clicking on the ';' key. You can also type an accented vowel by typing ´ on your Spanish keyboard (shown as '[{' on your English keyboard) plus the desired vowel.