General Type Special Characters and Symbols in Windows 11


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Symbols_banner.png

This tutorial will show you different ways to type special characters, accents (diacritical mark), and symbols in Windows 11.


Contents

  • Option One: Type Special Characters and Symbols using Emoji Panel
  • Option Two: Type Special Characters and Symbols using Emoji Panel on Touch Keyboard
  • Option Three: Type Special Characters and Symbols using Touch Keyboard
  • Option Four: Type Special Characters and Symbols using Character Map
  • Option Five: Type Special Characters and Symbols using Alt Codes




Option One

Type Special Characters and Symbols using Emoji Panel


1 Place the cursor where you want to insert a symbol, and open the Emoji Panel (Win+.).

2 Click/tap on the Symbols button on the toolbar, or scroll down to the Symbols section. (see screenshot below)

Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Emoji_Panel-1.png

3 The available symbols are divided into the General punctuations, Currency symbols, Latin symbols, Geometric symbols, Math symbols, Supplemental symbols, and Language symbols categories to select from. (see screenshot below)

4 Click/tap on the symbol you want to insert where the cursor is at in the text box.

Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Emoji_Panel-2.png




Option Two

Type Special Characters and Symbols using Emoji Panel on Touch Keyboard


1 Open the Touch Keyboard.

2 Click/tap on the Emoji button on the Touch Keyboard. (see screenshot below)

Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Touch_Keyboard-1.png

3 Click/tap on the Symbols button on the toolbar. (see screenshot below)

Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Touch_Keyboard-2.png

4 The available symbols are divided into the General punctuations, Currency symbols, Latin symbols, Geometric symbols, Math symbols, Supplemental symbols, and Language symbols categories to select from. (see screenshot below)

5 Place the cursor in the text box where you want to insert a symbol, and click/tap on the symbol in the Touch Keyboard to insert it at the cursor's location.

Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Touch_Keyboard-3.png




Option Three

Type Special Characters and Symbols using Touch Keyboard


1 Open the Touch Keyboard.

2 Place the cursor in the text box where you want to insert a symbol.

3 Perform one of the following actions: (see screenshot below)
  • Press and hold on a key you want on the Touch Keyboard to see that key's available accents or symbols, slide your finger over to the character you want to insert, and release finger to insert.
  • Left click and hold on a key you want on the Touch Keyboard to see that key's available accents or symbols, move the pointer over to the character you want to insert, and release left click to insert.
Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Touch_Keyboard.png





Option Four

Type Special Characters and Symbols using Character Map


1 Open Character Map (charmap.exe).

2 Select a Font you want to use in the drop menu. (see screenshot below)

Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Character_Map-1.png

3 Search for and click/tap on the character you want to insert. (see screenshot below step 5)

You can check Advanced view to:

1) Select to Group by "Unicode Subrange", and select a category of symbols to narrow your search.

2) Use Search for to search for a specific character (ex: "copyright"). Reset will clear the search.

Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Character_Map-2.png Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Character_Map-3.pngType_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Character_Map-4.png


4 Click/tap on the Select button. (see screenshot below step 5)

If wanted, you can select more than one character to insert at once.


5 Click/tap on the Copy button to copy the selected character(s) to the clipboard. (see screenshot below)

Type_special_characters_and_symbols_from_Character_Map-5.png

6 Place the cursor in the text box where you want to insert the symbol(s), and paste (Ctrl+V) to insert the copied symbol(s).




Option Five

Type Special Characters and Symbols using Alt Codes


This option requires using a numeric keypad.


1 Place the cursor in the text box where you want to insert a symbol.

2 Press and hold the Alt key.

3 Type the numbers (ex: 0169) for the symbol (ex: "©") you want in the table at the link below.


4 Release the Alt key to insert the symbol.


That's it,
Shawn Brink
 
Last edited:
Brink,

This is a shot in the dark but do you know what this symbol is?
The symbol is between the FF pairs of the next line
FFFF
As you will see by moving left-/right-arrow keys, it is a single character that merely looks like a colon followed by a space.
- I cannot find it in any code tables.
- It's been in the subject line of several emails from Chinese companies.
- The VBA processing I do with my email subject lines cannot detect the symbol let alone do anything about it.

If I can find out what it is then I might be one step closer to handling it properly.


All the best,
Denis
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Home x64 Version 23H2 Build 22631.3447
Thanks.
Wikipedia said:
(U+FF1A FULLWIDTH COLON)
I'll have to study that subject then. I haven't had to deal with character sets before.
My hope is to be able to remove it using something similar to the patterns I currently have in my Outlook VBA,
myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, "&", " and ")


All the best,
Denis
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Home x64 Version 23H2 Build 22631.3447
I don't know VBA, but you're supposed to use ChrW() or the funky &H(hex byte) notation to generate a Chinese character for matching purposes. /shrug
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7
OK, I'll study that as well.


Denis
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Home x64 Version 23H2 Build 22631.3447
garlin,

In studying your advice, I stumbled across the suggestion of excluding all characters outside a stated range instead of seeking out then removing specific characters that I don't want.
I recall a couple of years ago I got several emails with emoji-like characters in their Subject lines so deciding what to accept instead of what to reject would be better.
Removing special characters - Post by V Brunelle dated 21st July 2015

So I have kept my existing

Public Sub SetUniqueTitle()
'Initialisation section
Dim a
Dim c
Dim Output
Dim DTG
Dim myOlApp As New Outlook.Application
Dim myItem As Object
Set myOlApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
Set myItem = myOlApp.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem

myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, ":", " - ")
myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, "&", " and ")
myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, "|", " - ")
myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, "£", "GBP")
myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, "'", "") ' No longer needed - the character set step below takes care of this as well
myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, "!", "")' No longer needed - the character set step below takes care of this as well

and have merely added this step

For i = 1 To Len(myItem.Subject)
c = Mid(myItem.Subject, i, 1)
If (c >= "a" And c <= "z") Or (c >= "A" And c <= "Z") Or (c >= "0" And c <= "9") Or (c = ".") Or (c = ",") Or (c = "-") Or (c = "#") Then
Output = Output & c 'accept in-range characters
Else
Output = Output & " " 'replace unacceptable characters with spaces
End If
Next
myItem.Subject = Output

followed by some repeated double space removals just to tidy things up

myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, " ", " ")
myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, " ", " ")
myItem.Subject = Replace(myItem.Subject, " ", " ")

and then my existing manipulation of adding date-time transmitted/received to the start of the Subject along with an Rx/Tx marker for Received/Sent.

If Application.ActiveExplorer.CurrentFolder.Name = "Sent Items" Then WhoBy = "tx" Else WhoBy = "rx"
' Set DTG at start of Subject - UK SentOn format is 09/03/2023 19:27:42
DTG = Mid(myItem.SentOn, 7, 4) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 4, 2) & Left(myItem.SentOn, 2) & " " & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 12, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 15, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 18, 2)
' Correct for case of 00:00:00 {exactly midnight}. This happened once in 2021 in a similar script after having used these scripts for over twenty years.
If Len(Mid(myItem.SentOn, 12, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 15, 2) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 18, 2)) = 0 Then DTG = Mid(myItem.SentOn, 7, 4) & Mid(myItem.SentOn, 4, 2) & Left(myItem.SentOn, 2) & " 000000"
myItem.Subject = DTG & " " & WhoBy & " " & myItem.Subject
myItem.Save

End Sub

So, for example, the Subject
Re:RE: 1234567890 Could you confirm if you have receive it?
becomes
20240519 204556 rx Re RE - 1234567890 Could you confirm if you have receive it


I did not imagine that a workable solution would be this straightforward.
I'll keep an eye on things for a while as there might well be other characters that I'd be happy to leave in.

None of the characters that make it through will cause any problems with my backup scripts after I drag the emails into File explorer folders for permanent retention [the Subject lines of MSOffice Outlook emails dragged into the filing system determine their filenames].



All the best,
Denis
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Home x64 Version 23H2 Build 22631.3447
Why does ALT+248 produce the degree symbol in MS Word, as in 15°C, but it produces ◘ here?
I have region and language set to United Kingdom.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    11 Pro 23H2 OS build 22631.3672
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Swift SF114-34
    CPU
    Pentium Silver N6000 1.10GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    SSD
    Cooling
    fanless
    Internet Speed
    13Mbps
    Browser
    Brave, Edge or Firefox
    Antivirus
    Webroot Secure Anywhere
    Other Info
    System 3

    ASUS T100TA Transformer
    Processor Intel Atom Z3740 @ 1.33GHz
    Installed RAM 2.00 GB (1.89 GB usable)
    System type 32-bit operating system, x64-based processor

    Edition Windows 10 Home
    Version 22H2 build 19045.3570
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro 23H2 22631.2506
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Mini 210-1090NR PC (bought in late 2009!)
    CPU
    Atom N450 1.66GHz
    Memory
    2GB
Why does ALT+248 produce the degree symbol in MS Word, as in 15°C, but it produces ◘ here?
I have region and language set to United Kingdom.
Hmm, I'm not sure why. Alt+248 gives me the proper ° symbol.

It looks like it's in reverse contrast.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self build
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING (11GB GDDR5X)
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G75 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3 wall mounted
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gbps Download and 35 Mbps Upload
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Defender and Malwarebytes Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Spectre x360 2in1 14-eu0098nr (2024)
    CPU
    Intel Core Ultra 7 155H 4.8 GHz
    Memory
    16 GB LPDDR5x-7467 MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Integrated Intel Arc
    Sound Card
    Poly Studio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    14" 2.8K OLED multitouch
    Screen Resolution
    2880 x 1800
    Hard Drives
    2 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
    Internet Speed
    Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 (2x2) and Bluetooth 5.4
    Browser
    Chrome and Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Premium
Except the o is vertically centred?
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    11 Pro 23H2 OS build 22631.3672
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Swift SF114-34
    CPU
    Pentium Silver N6000 1.10GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    SSD
    Cooling
    fanless
    Internet Speed
    13Mbps
    Browser
    Brave, Edge or Firefox
    Antivirus
    Webroot Secure Anywhere
    Other Info
    System 3

    ASUS T100TA Transformer
    Processor Intel Atom Z3740 @ 1.33GHz
    Installed RAM 2.00 GB (1.89 GB usable)
    System type 32-bit operating system, x64-based processor

    Edition Windows 10 Home
    Version 22H2 build 19045.3570
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro 23H2 22631.2506
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Mini 210-1090NR PC (bought in late 2009!)
    CPU
    Atom N450 1.66GHz
    Memory
    2GB
Kelper,

If it's any help, my Alt-248 produces
°
[I have the forum set to a light skin rather than a dark one].
I first typed Alt-0248 and it produced​
ø​
I had no idea that omitting / including the leading 0 made any difference.​



All the best,
Denis
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Home x64 Version 23H2 Build 22631.3447
It's because I had 'Sticky keys' enabled!
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    11 Pro 23H2 OS build 22631.3672
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Swift SF114-34
    CPU
    Pentium Silver N6000 1.10GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    SSD
    Cooling
    fanless
    Internet Speed
    13Mbps
    Browser
    Brave, Edge or Firefox
    Antivirus
    Webroot Secure Anywhere
    Other Info
    System 3

    ASUS T100TA Transformer
    Processor Intel Atom Z3740 @ 1.33GHz
    Installed RAM 2.00 GB (1.89 GB usable)
    System type 32-bit operating system, x64-based processor

    Edition Windows 10 Home
    Version 22H2 build 19045.3570
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro 23H2 22631.2506
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Mini 210-1090NR PC (bought in late 2009!)
    CPU
    Atom N450 1.66GHz
    Memory
    2GB

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom self build
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING (11GB GDDR5X)
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G75 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3 wall mounted
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gbps Download and 35 Mbps Upload
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Defender and Malwarebytes Premium
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Spectre x360 2in1 14-eu0098nr (2024)
    CPU
    Intel Core Ultra 7 155H 4.8 GHz
    Memory
    16 GB LPDDR5x-7467 MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Integrated Intel Arc
    Sound Card
    Poly Studio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    14" 2.8K OLED multitouch
    Screen Resolution
    2880 x 1800
    Hard Drives
    2 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
    Internet Speed
    Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200 (2x2) and Bluetooth 5.4
    Browser
    Chrome and Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Premium
It's only that you guys posted I thought of looking at my setup. Thanks!
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    11 Pro 23H2 OS build 22631.3672
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Swift SF114-34
    CPU
    Pentium Silver N6000 1.10GHz
    Memory
    4GB
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    SSD
    Cooling
    fanless
    Internet Speed
    13Mbps
    Browser
    Brave, Edge or Firefox
    Antivirus
    Webroot Secure Anywhere
    Other Info
    System 3

    ASUS T100TA Transformer
    Processor Intel Atom Z3740 @ 1.33GHz
    Installed RAM 2.00 GB (1.89 GB usable)
    System type 32-bit operating system, x64-based processor

    Edition Windows 10 Home
    Version 22H2 build 19045.3570
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro 23H2 22631.2506
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Mini 210-1090NR PC (bought in late 2009!)
    CPU
    Atom N450 1.66GHz
    Memory
    2GB

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