Symbols and Special Characters in Microsoft Word

Symbols and Special Characters in Microsoft Word Symbols and Special Characters in Microsoft Word Your average keyboard has enough letters, numbers, and punctuation marks for all your day-to-day typing needs. But what if you need symbols or special characters that aren’t on your keyboard? Well, in Microsoft Word, you have three main options: Use the Symbol menu. Learn some ASCII codes. Use Microsoft Word’s special character shortcuts. In the rest of this post, we’ll look at how to do each of these in your writing. 1. Using the Symbol Menu To see the Symbol menu in Microsoft Word, go to Insert Symbols on the ribbon and click the Symbol button (or Insert Advanced Symbol Symbols in the menu system in Word for Mac). Quick access symbols. This will open a quick access menu of 20 frequently used symbols to pick from. However, you can also access the full range of special characters in Microsoft Word as follows: Go to Insert Symbols and click Symbol to open the menu. Click More Symbols†¦ to open a new window. Scroll through until you find the symbol you want to use. Click Insert to add the symbol to your document. The full range of special characters in Microsoft Word. The symbol will then appear in your document at your cursor. Microsoft Word will also add it to the quick access menu, saving your time if you need to use the same symbol again. 2. ASCII Codes ASCII codes each indicate a different symbol, so you can use them to add special characters to a document quickly via the numeric keypad: Learn or look up the correct ASCII code for the symbol(s) you need. Turn on Num Lock on your keyboard to activate the numeric keypad. Hold down the Alt key and type the required code. The corresponding symbol will then appear at your cursor position. 3. Shortcuts for Special Characters For some special characters, your simplest option is to let Microsoft Word do the hard work! There are, for example, shortcuts available for the following common symbols: Special Character Shortcut Autocorrect Option Trademark symbol (â„ ¢) Ctrl + Alt + T Write â€Å"TM† in parentheses Registered trademark symbol ( ®) Ctrl + Alt + R â€Å"R† in parentheses Copyright symbol ( ©) Ctrl + Alt + C â€Å"C† in parentheses Closed Ellipsis (†¦) Ctrl + Alt + . Three full stops without spaces Euro (â‚ ¬) Ctrl + Alt + E â€Å"E† in parentheses You’ll notice we’ve included an â€Å"autocorrect† version for each symbol above. In these cases, Microsoft Word will automatically correct the specified text to create the symbol. For example, to add a trademark symbol to a document, we have two options: Hold down Ctrl + Alt + T at the same time. Write â€Å"(TM)† and let Microsoft Word change this to the symbol. These shortcuts are very quick and simple, so it is worth memorizing them if you use any of these symbols frequently. Similar shortcuts are also available for accented letters.