In order to enable typing the special characters, Microsoft uses alt keys on the keyboard as a modifier. You can use the alt key and the decimal value of the Unicode character to insert symbols on your PC. Things are different on macOS. Apple keyboard has option keys (also called alt keys) which you can use to insert symbols. You may not need special characters in day-to-day operations, but once in a while if the need arises, you now know how to get it done quickly. The feature certainly covers most of the special characters you may ever need. To test whether you have got it correctly, comment a special character below. Related articles. If you need to remove one special character (for example an unconventional space): count at which position the character is in the string. Then you can extract it with the MID function. After you have only this character, you use the CODE function to get it’s code. This is where Excel’s FIND function comes in handy. With the FIND function, you can get the position number of a particular character and use that character position in other operations. In the example shown, you use the FIND function in conjunction with the MID function to extract the middle numbers from a list of product codes.
Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization that focuses on standardizing the language inputs. There are many Unicode blocks for special symbols and characters that you can’t type using standard English keyboard layout. In this article, let us explain how to change the input method in Mac to Unicode Hex Input and insert the Unicode characters.
Windows Alt Code Vs Mac Option Code
In order to enable typing the special characters, Microsoft uses alt keys on the keyboard as a modifier. You can use the alt key and the decimal value of the Unicode character to insert symbols on your PC. Things are different on macOS. Apple keyboard has option keys (also called alt keys) which you can use to insert symbols. However, you need to use the Unicode hexadecimal values of the character which is not possible using standard input method. Therefore, you should add Unicode compatible input method to type the characters.
How to Change Unicode Hex Input Method in Mac?
Mac offers a Unicode Hex Input method to help users directlyusing the Unicode point value. Follow the below instructions to change thedefault keyboard input method.
- Go to “Apple Menu > System Preferences…” andopen “Keyboard” preferences.
- You will see lot of options for customizing your keyboard settings.
- Navigate to “Input Sources” tab and first ensure to enable “Show Input menu in menu bar” checkbox. This will add an icon on the top menu bar as we have shown above. You can easily toggle the input source from the top menu bar’s icon.
Adding Unicode Hex Input Method
- Click on the + button to add a new keyboardinput method.
- You will see all the languages that Mac supportsin the next popup.
- Scroll down to the bottom and click on “Others”option.
- Select “Unicode Hex Input” and click on “Add”button.
- Now you have successfully added Unicode inputmethod on your Mac.
Related:How to type accented letters in Mac?
Toggling Keyboard Input Method
The default English keyboard input in Mac is ABC. Check thetop menu bar on your Mac showing A icon nearer to the time. You can click onthe icon to see multiple options and change your preferred keyboard inputmethod.
Open your document where you want to insert Unicode symbols.Click on the “Input Menu” on the top bar and choose “Unicode Hex Input” option.Now the icon should show as U+.
Typing Unicode Symbols
Hold one of the option keys and type the Unicode hexadecimal values to insert symbols. For example, option + 2A37 will produce the double circle cross sign like ⨷.
You can toggle the input method back to ABC after you typethe symbols. In most cases, you can continue with U+ input method as it shouldstill work for typing standard letters.
Limitations of Unicode Hex Input
Though it is easy to toggle the input method, it supportsonly four digit hex code value. However, Unicode has many 5 digits hex valueswhich you can’t insert using the Unicode Hex Inputs method.
The solution is to press “Command + Control + Space” andopen Character Viewer. On the search bar, you can type to five digits hex codeto find the relevant character. For example, type 1F313 to find the firstquarter moon symbol like ?.
Remember, this will work on all Mac applications. However,Character Viewer will not work on other applications like Microsoft Word on Mac.
Inserting symbols and unusual characters to your document is easy with Office 2011 for Mac. Symbols for foreign languages, math and science, currency, and so on, are quickly accessible in Office 2011 for Mac.
Just position your insertion cursor (the blinking vertical bar) where you want the symbol inserted in your document and then use one of the following tools to browse the symbols in your Mac’s font collections:
The Symbols tab of the Media browser is a quick, easy way to get at the most popular symbols.
In Microsoft Word, you can choose Insert→Symbol→Advanced Symbol to display a more advanced symbol browser.
Inserting symbols quickly with Media browser in Office 2011 for Mac
Search Special Characters In Excel
The Symbols tab of the Media browser contains only popular symbols, fractions, mathematical signs, and even some music notations. This is a quick, easy-to-use tool. Simply click a symbol, and it’s inserted as text into your document at the insertion cursor’s position. A pop-up menu lets you filter the symbols. Drag the slider at the bottom to adjust the symbol preview size.
Using the Advanced Symbol tool in Word 2011 for Mac
Within Microsoft Word is a feature that people switching from PC to Mac will find familiar. You display the Symbol dialog by choosing Insert→Symbol→Advanced Symbol. The basic operation is simple: Choose a symbol and then either click the Insert button or double-click the symbol. You find two tabs: Symbols and Special Characters.
Inserting from the Symbols tab in Office 2011 applications
The Symbols tab offers a grid-based preview of symbols contained in the font selected in the Font pop-up menu. When you click a symbol, the description area updates and displays the font’s ASCII number and Unicode character number, which you can ignore if you don’t know what that means. If you’ve assigned a keyboard shortcut to a particular symbol, the shortcut is displayed in the Description area.
To insert a symbol, select it in the grid and click the Insert button.
Inserting special characters in Word 2011
Excel Special Characters List
The Special Characters tab of the Symbol dialog has a list of frequently used characters and displays the built-in keyboard shortcuts for those characters in Word. To insert a special character, select it from the list and click the Insert button.