It is also possible to program Microsoft Word to use a key such as the ALT with the letter or symbol to do the same thing. Go to the Insert menu and select Symbol, highlight the symbol that you want to program, such as Á (capital A with accent). Then select the Shortcut Key and "press new shortcut key". The "current keys" will tell you what the current shortcut is to that key. Since I use very few shortcuts on my keyboard, I have assigned ALT + n to give me ñ and ATL + o to give me ó (accented o) etc.
You will still need the above codes because this programming only works in Word, of course, you can always create your documents in Word and then cut and paste them into email and other types of documents.