On the French/English vocabulary board there's a sticky post about it being mandatory to use accent marks in French words, a policy that I support. The post goes on to give information about how to create accent marks. I wanted to add some additional useful info, but the thread is closed. I then thought I would PM the person who made the post, which is The WR Moderator Team. However, it doesn't let you PM him/her. I'll therefore post the information here. Perhaps a moderator could add this information to the sticky titled, "Adding accent marks (accent marks are mandatory in French)." I believe it will be useful to people as it has was of doing it without having to remember ASCII numbers.
Linux
I use a widget under Kubuntu Linux named "Character Selector." It installs via the Panel Tool Box. You just click on that and then choose “add widgets” and scroll through the available widgets until you find it. It's extremely useful. It puts an icon in the system tray that looks like a typewriter key with the "à" letter. You just click on it and it pops up a menu to choose whatever character you want. With it set to "European Alphabets" and "Latin 1 Supplement," you can find any character you need in French (and some other languages like German and Swedish). It has other alphabets too such as Asian and African ones. I just leave mine set to European/Latin 1 and always have access to the French characters that I need. You should be able to install Character Selector to any KDE-based distribution of Linux like Kubuntu. It can probably also be installed in other non-KDE distros (like Ubuntu), though I have not done that.
With LibreOffice -- Linux/Windows/Mac
If you have LibreOffice, you can use Writer to get any of the French accent marks you need. In Writer just choose Insert and then Special Character. When the menu comes up, choose Latin 1 from the drop-down menu. You will find all the French characters you need, as well as some others for other European languages.
Linux
I use a widget under Kubuntu Linux named "Character Selector." It installs via the Panel Tool Box. You just click on that and then choose “add widgets” and scroll through the available widgets until you find it. It's extremely useful. It puts an icon in the system tray that looks like a typewriter key with the "à" letter. You just click on it and it pops up a menu to choose whatever character you want. With it set to "European Alphabets" and "Latin 1 Supplement," you can find any character you need in French (and some other languages like German and Swedish). It has other alphabets too such as Asian and African ones. I just leave mine set to European/Latin 1 and always have access to the French characters that I need. You should be able to install Character Selector to any KDE-based distribution of Linux like Kubuntu. It can probably also be installed in other non-KDE distros (like Ubuntu), though I have not done that.
With LibreOffice -- Linux/Windows/Mac
If you have LibreOffice, you can use Writer to get any of the French accent marks you need. In Writer just choose Insert and then Special Character. When the menu comes up, choose Latin 1 from the drop-down menu. You will find all the French characters you need, as well as some others for other European languages.