The ñ é &pound etc. method
(for ñ é and £ for example)
is by far the safest way if you're not sure. If it's physically possible for the browser to find the symbol in any available font it will always do the right thing.

Using Alt + various numbers enters the code using a specific character encoding that may or may not be the encoding used by somebody else's browser viewing it. When you design your own web pages, you can force the particular encoding which makes this more likely to work, but on Mudcat you don't have control over that so it's not reliable.

Anahata