How to type special characters and symbols on any device
Keyboards only have room for a hundred or so keys, but everyday writing needs more: accented letters in names, the degree sign in a recipe, © on a website footer, an em dash in a sentence. Every operating system has ways to type them. Here are the quickest.
Windows
The emoji and symbol panel
Press Windows key + . (period) or Windows key + ; to open the emoji panel. Besides emoji, it has tabs for symbols (punctuation, currency, math, Latin letters with accents) and kaomoji. This is the easiest method for occasional use.
Alt codes
Hold Alt and type a number on the numeric keypad (the number row above the letters won’t work), then release Alt. For example:
- Alt+0169 → ©
- Alt+0153 → ™
- Alt+0176 → °
- Alt+0151 → — (em dash)
- Alt+0233 → é
Codes starting with 0 come from the Windows-1252 character set; codes without a leading zero come from the older CP437 set and can produce different characters. Wordformat’s Alt Codes page lists both. Laptops without a numeric keypad generally can’t use Alt codes; use the symbol panel instead.
Microsoft Word shortcuts
Word has its own extras: type a character’s Unicode hex code followed by Alt+X (for example 2713 then Alt+X gives ✓), and use AutoCorrect, which turns (c) into © and (tm) into ™ automatically.
Mac
- Press and hold a letter to see its accented versions, then press the number shown. Hold e, press 2, and you get é.
- Option key shortcuts: Option+G → ©, Option+2 → ™, Option+Shift+8 → °, Option+Shift+hyphen → — (em dash), Option+hyphen → – (en dash).
- Character Viewer: press Control+Command+Space (or Fn/Globe+E) to search every symbol by name.
iPhone and iPad
- Press and hold a letter, number or punctuation key to see alternatives: hold e for accents, the hyphen for dashes, $ for other currencies, and 0 for the degree sign.
- Text Replacement (Settings › General › Keyboard › Text Replacement) lets you create shortcuts, such as typing “tm” to insert ™.
Android
- With Gboard and most other keyboards, long-press a key for accented letters and related symbols.
- Tap ?123, then =\< for a second page of symbols such as ©, ®, ™, ° and currency signs.
Linux
In most desktop environments, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type the Unicode hex code and press Enter or Space: Ctrl+Shift+U, 00e9 gives é. Many distributions also support a Compose key for sequences like Compose, o, c → ©.
The universal method: copy and paste
When you can’t remember a code, or you need something unusual like a check mark (✓), an arrow (→) or a star (★), copying is fastest. Wordformat’s symbol collections let you click any symbol to copy it, with pages for check marks, arrows, currency, math, hearts and more.