Why can't I show accents in Latex?

Question

As soon as I use accents in my text, it won't work anymore. It reports the error:

! Undefined control sequence.
<argument> R\UTF 
                 {00E9}seau Ethernet
l.88 \section{R\UTF{00E9}seau Ethernet}

?

To explain the output a bit, I am trying to compile \section{Réseau Ethernet} in that line.

I think it has to do with the encoding. Can somebody tell me where I should look into to fix this? I use TeXShop with MacOs X. Is there any additional information I should provide?

Edit: I think the actual problem seems to have to do with this warning:

Package frenchb.ldf Warning: The definition of \@makecaption has been changed,
(frenchb.ldf)                frenchb will NOT customize it;
(frenchb.ldf)                reported on input line 83.

Since I already use

\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

Answer 1

Try adding;

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

to the start of the document.

Answer 2

Have a look here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Internationalization.

Here is what I use with TeXlive, on GNU/Linux:

\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

Your setup code may differ, e.g. with TeTeX I had to add \usepackage{ucs} and use utf8x instead of utf8.

Answer 3

Here is a LaTeX cheatsheet [PDF warning]. The é character can be made using the \'e command. I don't think you need to change the encoding.

Answer 4

From version 1.35 TexShop supports XeTeX, so say goodbye to LaTeX utf8 hell and write in whatever language and font you want.