It's a common problem for people using a US keyboard layout. Say you want to type Beyoncé , but where is the accented 'e' key ?

For webpage text: Note the Entity codes use a simple syntax: type the & , a capital or lower case vowel, add the accent name, and place a ; (semi-colon) after the combination. The Decimal codes syntax is &# ,the number in paranthesis, followed by a ; (semi-colon) .

First, place your cursor (pointer) IN the search box in your browsers upper right corner. Next, find your Alt key; typical laptops and full-sized keyboards have Alt keys on each side of the spacebar key (the long key in the middle at the bottom).
Hold down the Alt key with your left index finger, and use the number pad keys to type 165. Now let go of the Alt key, and you see the capital N with a tilde accent, looks like Ñ . If it did not produce a character, next time press the Num Lock key, and then try again. You can find many 'old-fashioned' characters starting with Alt+1. Note that adding a zero will create a different character.