Tech for Teaching

Entering Special Characters

Computer keyboards typically have just over 100 keys on them of which fewer than 50 actually produce a letter, number, or symbol when pressed. In constract, a modern computer font seldom contains fewer than 300 symbols and many contain thousands.

One reason modern fonts contain so many symbols is that they provide alphabets for additional languages such as Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, and Russian.

This explosion of symbols has been facilitated by the widespread adoption of Unicode which is an international standard which assigns a numeric code to each of the world’s tens of thousands of letters, numbers, and symbols.

Switchable Keyboard Layouts

If you will be typing in a foreign language, you will need to load an appropriate keyboard map.

A keyboard map is a table in your computer which tells it what letter, number, or symbol is meant when any given key on your keyboard is pressed both with and without the Shift, Control, and Alt keys. If we change this map we can redefine the meaning of keys on our keyboards and can type in a foreign language which uses a different alphabet. This can be done in the keyboard control panel of modern operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, MacOS X and Linux.

Because computer language keywords, commands, web addresses, e-mail addresses, and so much more are written in the Latin alphabet, user of other alphabets need an easy way to switch keyboard maps. Often this is done by pressing Alt and Shift at the same time, though this too can be changed.

Users who are not touch typists in both languages need a way to know which key is which. In countries with non-Latin alphabets keyboards or sold with the local alphabet printed below the Latin alphabet on the keycaps. One can also buy sets of transparent stickers which can be applied to the keycaps of a US English keyboard.

Character Maps

Most operating systems have a character map. This is a grid which displays all of the available characters. In Microsoft Windows this can be found in the Start menu. In MacOS X it can be found in most applications under Special Characters in the Edit menu.

To use the character map you scroll through it, find the characters you need, and click or press a button to copy them to the clipboard. You then go back to your application and paste them in.

When computers provided only a few hundred possible symbols, character maps worked well, but now that they provide thousands, it can be nearly impossible to find the needed symbol. If you know the name of the character you want, you may be able to find it using the character map’s search function, if it has one.

Web Searches

Another way to find the character you need it to search for it on the Internet. There are numerous sites with tables of characters organized in varous ways. You have a good chance of finding what you need.

Often it helps to include the word “unicode” in your search. For example a search for “unicode dash” will bring up a selection of dashes of various lengths from which to choose.

When you find the character you need, just copy it and paste it into your document.

Useful Special Characters to Copy

When you find the special characters which you need for your courses, you can save time in future by pasting them into a document or a web page.

Here is an example:

Alt Codes

Under Microsoft Windows you can enter any character by holding down Alt and typing its Unicode number in decimal on the numeric keypad. The character will appear when you release Alt. Note that this will work only if Numlock is on.

Keyboard Tricks on a Macintosh

On a Macintosh computer if you hold down a letter key a little menu will pop up from which you can choose an accented version of that letter.

If you want to add an accute accent to a letter, there is a quicker way: Hold down Option, press e, and the letter over which you wish to place the accent. There are a number of other sequences like this.

The article How to Type Letters with Accents on Mac at FreeCodeCamp gives many more.