Two dots mean two syllables.
Zoë is the name of my new niece, Zoë. Two syllables, rhymes with Bowie.
Zoe is the name of my sister's friend, Zoe. One syllable, rhymes with Toe.
I don't like to think of confusing Zoë with Zoe. Cute baby yes, Mrs. Long no: not the same.
You may prefer to write Zoë's name as Zoe (or Zoey, or Zoe-ee, or ...)
instead of Zoë.
(It's a free country.)
But that would be somebody else's name.
Zoë has a special symbol, e-with-umlaut, just like Zoë is a special baby.
I know, it's tough: e-with-umlaut isn't a key on your keyboard.
(And who wants to actually learn something new! OhmyGOD!)
Okay, you're right, it's not that hard, after all. It's totally simple.
You just have to type a couple extra keystrokes. No big deal.
Depending on what kind of computer you have or program you're using.
So here are a bunch of different ways to type Zoë.
| Manual Typewriter | Z, o, e, backspace, " |
| Web page (i.e., HTML) (1) | Z, o, &, e, u, m, l, ; |
| Web page (i.e., HTML) (2) | Z, o, &, #, 2, 3, 5, ; |
| Macintosh(slow) | Z, o, "Edit" -> "Special Characters" -> "Accented Latin" -> ë -> "Insert" (thanks to Shannon Schmalfeldt!) |
| Macintosh(fast) | Z, o, Alt-u (gives the two dots), e (thanks to Rob Wilkins!) |
| Macintosh(within Pages) | Z, o, hold down the 'e' key, up pops a menu of options, select ë (thanks to Meaghan!) |
| MS Word (95 - 2000)(1) | Z, o, control-shift-;, e |
| MS Word (95 - 2000)(2) | Z, o, control-:, e |
| MS Word 2000(3) | Z, o, Insert->Symbols->normal text->Latin-1->row 7, cell 3 |
| MS Word for XP | Z, o, 0, 0, e, b, Alt-X (those are number 0's not letter O's) |
| MS Wordpad for XP | Same as MS Word for XP |
| ?? for Windows 2000 | Alt-0235 |
| Netscape Messenger 4.7 | Tools -> Character Tools -> Insert Special Character -> click on the desired symbol. |
| MS Outlook (rich text) for XP | Same as MS Word for XP. Pull down the Tools menu, select the Character Tools submenu, select the Insert Special Character menu item, select the desired letter. |
| MS Outlook Express | "Just add Zoë to your spell checker with the umlaut, then when ever you spell it incorrectly, the spell checker will give you the correct spelling complete with punctuation. Now it even works with Outlook express. I have mine programmed to spell check every outgoing Email, so I am set." (From LeAnn Diessner) |
| VIM | Within vim (an augmented version of the well known VI (VIsual editor for unix), one can enter the correct spelling of Zoe via: Z, o, control-shift-v, 2, 3, 5 |
| Emacs editor | Z, o, control-x, 8, ", e (save as iso-8859-1) |
| Latin-1 alphabet | Z (character number 90), o (character number 111), ë(character number 235) |
| ANSI alphabet | same as Latin-1 |
| ISO-8859-1 alphabet | same as Latin-1 |
| International Windows | Z, o, ", e (see note from Steven here) |
Can't remember the details? Save this page under Bookmarks or Favorites.
If you have another way of typing it, please let me know. (My contact info.)
I was asked how to do this in Photoshop, in Illustrator, and in Chrome, but I have not had the opportunity to figure those out yet. If you happen to know, or can suggest how to find out, please please please let me know too! (here.)