¡ ásçìï çöðès for Special Characters using PCs!

[tomndebb]

This subject comes up with a certain frequency:

How do we type in non-English letters and special symbols? I am not familiar with Macs, although I understand that some of these characters are easily available directly from the keyboard.

The following list provides the largest number of symbols that should be displayed on all receiving monitors. There are quite a few other symbols available, but their display is inconsistent across different hardware and software configurations.

On a PC, holding the Alt key down while entering the next four digits on the numeric keypad to the right of the keyboard will produce the following letters and symbols. The numeral keys across the top of the keyboard will not produce these results. Your NumLock should be set ON. You must type all four digits while the Alt key is depressed. (The Yen, ¥, at the bottom is an example of a character than many machines will either not produce or not display.)

(There are a number of key patterns that can produce these symbols with only two or three digits, however, like the extended set of characters mentioned, above, they are inconsistent across hardware and software configs. The following list should consistently produce the largest number of symbols for the largest number of (PC) users.)

Now, if I get really lucky, UBB will not mess up my alignment too badly:

á Alt+0225 lowercase "a" acute
Á Alt+0193 uppercase "a" acute
â Alt+0226 lowercase "a" circumflex
 Alt+0194 uppercase "a" circumflex
à Alt+0224 lowercase "a" grave
À Alt+0192 uppercase "a" grave
å Alt+0229 lowercase "a" ring
Å Alt+0197 uppercase "a" ring
ã Alt+0227 lowercase "a" tilde
à Alt+0195 uppercase "a" tilde
ä Alt+0228 lowercase "a" umlaut
Ä Alt+0196 uppercase "a" umlaut
æ Alt+0230 lowercase "ae" ligature (also "ash")
Æ Alt+0198 uppercase "ae" ligature (also "ash")
ç Alt+0231 lowercase "c" cedilla
Ç Alt+0199 uppercase "c" cedilla
ð Alt+0240 lowercase edh (eth in Icelandic)
Ð Alt+0208 uppercase edh (eth in Icelandic)
é Alt+0233 lowercase "e" acute
É Alt+0201 uppercase "e" acute
ê Alt+0234 lowercase "e" circumflex
Ê Alt+0202 uppercase "e" circumflex
è Alt+0232 lowercase "e" grave
È Alt+0200 uppercase "e" grave
ë Alt+0235 lowercase "e" umlaut
Ë Alt+0203 uppercase "e" umlaut
í Alt+0237 lowercase "i" acute
Í Alt+0205 uppercase "i" acute
î Alt+0238 lowercase "i" circumflex
Î Alt+0206 uppercase "i" circumflex
ì Alt+0236 lowercase "i" grave
Ì Alt+0204 uppercase "i" grave
ï Alt+0239 lowercase "i" umlaut
Ï Alt+0207 uppercase "i" umlaut
ñ Alt+0241 lowercase "n" tilde
Ñ Alt+0209 uppercase "n" tilde
ó Alt+0243 lowercase "o" acute
Ó Alt+0211 uppercase "o" acute
ô Alt+0244 lowercase "o" circumflex
Ô Alt+0212 uppercase "o" circumflex
ò Alt+0242 lowercase "o" grave
Ò Alt+0210 uppercase "o" grave
ø Alt+0248 lowercase "o" slash
Ø Alt+0216 uppercase "o" slash
õ Alt+0245 lowercase "o" tilde
Õ Alt+0213 uppercase "o" tilde
ö Alt+0246 lowercase "o" umlaut
Ö Alt+0214 uppercase "o" umlaut
Þ Alt+0222 lowercase thorn
þ Alt+0254 uppercase thorn
ß Alt+0223 double "s" (or long "s")
ú Alt+0250 lowercase "u" acute
Ú Alt+0218 uppercase "u" acute
û Alt+0251 lowercase "u" circumflex
Û Alt+0219 uppercase "u" circumflex
ù Alt+0249 lowercase "u" grave
Ù Alt+0217 uppercase "u" grave
u Alt+0252 lowercase "u" umlaut
Ü Alt+0220 uppercase "u" umlaut
ý Alt+0253 lowercase "y" acute
Ý Alt+0221 uppercase "y" acute
ÿ Alt+0255 lowercase "y" umlaut
¸ Alt+0184 cedilla
¨ Alt+0168 die
¢ Alt+0162 cent
£ Alt+0163 Pound Sterling
© Alt+0169 copyright
® Alt+0174 registered trademark
¶ Alt+0182 paragraph
§ Alt+0167 section
¡ Alt+0161 inverted exclamation point
¿ Alt+0191 inverted question mark
« Alt+0171 left double angle quote
» Alt+0187 right double angle quote
· Alt+0183 middle dot/bullet
° Alt+0176 degree
÷ Alt+0247 divide
× Alt+0215 times (× not letter x)
± Alt+0177 plus/minus
² Alt+0178 superscript 2
³ Alt+0179 superscript 3
¼ Alt+0188 one quarter
½ Alt+0189 one half
¾ Alt+0190 three quarters
¥ Alt+3229 Yen

------------------
Tom~

[Arnold Winkelried]

I am not familiar with Macs, although I understand that some of these characters are easily available directly from the keyboard.

I'm familiar with the Macintosh. If those characters are included in the font you're currently using, they are all available from the keyboard. For example,
é is typed in by <option>e e.

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La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l'on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l'on dit.
H. de Livry

[Arnold Winkelried]

Let's try that last sentence again.

I'm familiar with the Macintosh. If those characters are included in the font you're currently using, they are all available from the keyboard. For example,
é is typed in by {option}e e.

[TubaDiva]

Thanks, guys. Let's get this set and I'll stick it in the Reference Section.

your humble TubaDiva/SDStaffDiv
for the Straight Dope
always grateful for the help

[tomndebb]

Arnold, just out of curiosity, what would the Mac keystrokes be for ¼, ©, £, or æ?

Does {option} indicate a diacritical mark on the keyboard? Or is it a separate special key? (E.g., do you press ` and e simultaneously followed by e to get è?

It may be intuitively obvious to Mac users, but I'm having trouble picturing the keystrokes from your description.

[Arnold Winkelried]

Arnold, just out of curiosity, what would the Mac keystrokes be for ¼, ©, £, or æ?
Does {option} indicate a diacritical mark on the keyboard? Or is it a separate special key? (E.g., do you press ` and e simultaneously followed by e to get è?

Sorry, tom, I'm at work right now so I don't have access to my trusty make. Blast and damnation The "special" keys on a Macintosh are the "command" key (sometimes called the apple key), the control key (also present on PC keyboards) and the option key (labelled opt).

The option key, (similar to the [alt] key on an IBM keyboard) works the same way as the shift key, in that when you press it by itself it does nothing. You use it in conjunction with another key to produce a different character.

To do, for example
© : press down the option key and g.
£ : option 3
æ : option ;

To find out which characters are formed when you press down the option key, there is a program in the apple menu called Key Caps.

------------------
La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l'on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l'on dit.
H. de Livry

[Huemr]

The following list provides the largest number of symbols that should be displayed on all receiving monitors. There are quite a few other symbols available, but their display is inconsistent across different hardware and software configurations.


Don't forget this one.

™ Alt+0153

[Louie]

If you don't like using Alt + number combos for your special symbols, then this site will show you how you do all the symbols the HTML way :

Webmonkey Reference: Special Characters (http://www.hotwired.com/webmonkey/reference/special_characters/)

------------------
...and remember, duct tape fixes all your problems, big and small.

Fun with HTML (tutoral) : The True Sequal (http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/19991103-2-000302.html)
Give someone an FU (http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000255.html)

[Triskadecamus]

&Ouml &ntilde

[sly]

On a PC, holding the Alt key down while entering the next four digits on the numeric keypad to the right of the keyboard will produce the following letters and symbols.

This explains why I can't do Alt-combos with my laptop. Any suggestions?

[tomndebb]

I'm not sure; my wife's laptop is at work.

However, her keyboard has a set of numeric keys over where the old IBM 29 keypunch numerics were--on the right side of the keyboard, on top of the U I O J K L (and some surrounding) keys. You activate them with one of the Alt or Ctrl or other non-character keys.

[handy]

a test:


JÔJÔߟ

[handy]

Ah, ha!

Try my way. Use the Windows Character Map [under accessories] find the FONT that has the character you want. Select the character. Copy it. Paste it into the message. Ta da!

[NanoByte]

p
<font face="symbol>p</font>
<font face="symbol>D</font>

[NanoByte]

As far as Netscape Navigator 4.7, trying 'http://cs.nyu.edu/~yap/gifs/hlx/pi.gif', in this SDMB form:

1. handy's method, with Win 97, doesn't work.

and

2. neither does &lt;<font face="symbol">p</font>, which works on a Web page in this browser.

See my just-prior post here. I only got 'http://cs.nyu.edu/~yap/gifs/hlx/pi.gif' here using '&lt;http://cs.nyu.edu/~yap/gifs/hlx/pi.gif'.

So, tomndeb, how does one get Greek or Cyrillic letters here without such a cheat?

Ray

[tomndebb]

Greek and Cyrillic are among the codes that do not cross all platform/OS boundaries. If I get a chance, I'll post the codes, but I can't see them in raw ASCII, so I don't know how well they'll show up here.

If the following work, I'll try to put the list together, if they don't, I probably won't:

(At the right is the character I see after entering the Alt+code on my PC)
I Alt+1097 lower case alpha ___ I
) Alt+1065 upper case alpha ___ )
J Alt+1098 lower case beta ____ J
* Alt+1066 upper case beta ____ *
O Alt+1103 lower case gamma ___ O
/ Alt+1071 upper case gamma ___ /
L Alt+1100 lower case delta ___ L
, Alt+1068 upper case delta ___ ,

|4102|lower case cyr_a ____ (no character)
µ|4070|upper case cyr_a ___ Greek lowercase mu
¦|4044|lower case cyr_b ___ Broken bar
_|4060|upper case cyr_b ___ underscore
|4100|lower case cyr_v ____ (no character)
_|4068|upper case cyr_v ___ underscore
§|4117|lower case cyr_g ___ Section symbol
_|4085|upper case cyr_g ___ underscore


------------------
Tom~

[tomndebb]

Seems that listing those codes would be a waste of time. (If you need one of those alphabets, there are fonts available for various computers, including TrueType fonts, I believe. To produce themn here, it seems you need HTML.)

[NanoByte]

<font face="symbol">p

a
b
g
d
e</font>

[NanoByte]

I was wrong. If I do it right, the method:

font face="symbol"p/font

does work, with the angle brackets in place, to give '<font face="symbol">p</font>'. And the rest of the Greek alphabet works the same way, as I observe this on Netscape Nav 4.7.

Ray

[NanoByte]

<font face="symbol">A B G D E Z H TH I K L M N X O P R S T U PH CH PS OO

a b g d e z h th i k l m n x o p r s t u ph ch ps oo

C F J Q V W Y

c f j q v w y</font>

[NanoByte]

<font face="symbol">A B G D E Z H Q I K L M N X O P R S T U F C Y W

a b g d e z h q i k l m n x o p r s t u f c y w

J V

j v</font>

[tomndebb]

bump

Hey, now that we're done with the upgrade, how 'bout adding this & the OP in the Special Characters thread to the reference section?

------------------
Sue from El Paso

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

[RTFirefly]

Piece of <font face="symbol">p</font>.

[RTFirefly]

Of course, the key code from Tom's OP is Alt+0248, for the møøse credits.

<font size=1>test</font>
<font size=2>test</font>
<font size=3>test</font>
<font size=4>test</font>
<font size=5>test</font>
<font size=6>test</font>

<font size=1>test</font>
<font size=2>test</font>
<font size=3>test</font>
<font size=4>test</font>
<font size=5>test</font>
<font size=6>test</font>

[tomndebb]

Gone, but not forgotten.

[Colibri]

Thanks for bumping this, Tom. I've wanted something like this.

Test

áéíñóú

:cool:

originally posted by TubaDiva
Thanks, guys. Let's get this set and I'll stick it in the Reference Section.

So what happened to the Reference Section? Was that lost in the Great Conversion? Or have I been missing something all this time?

[TubaDiva]

Lost in the conversion, we're gonna redo the FAQ soon.

I'll add this in as well.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

[RTFirefly]

We can get fünný çhåracters nowadays by cøpying from the "Chârãcter Map" that's under Start-Programs-Accessories on most PCs.

You can get just about any §¥¢ƒ‡¿¡©! character you want.

But Greek letters and mathematical symbols don't seem to survive the transition to this board. Anybody got any suggestions there?

[Chronos]

Greek letters etcetera don't work from charmap because when you look at the character for, say, pi, in charmap, you're not actually looking at the character for "pi", you're looking at the character for "p" in symbol font. You can find a character that really is "pi" up in the Unicode section of charmap, but most web browsers, and likely the message board software as well, don't support Unicode.

Symbol font (and possibly wingdings as well) is one option I would really love to see a code for on this board, but realistically, the priority for that is probably low enough that we'll never see it.

[Derleth]

Wingdings, if it's ever supported, might be as effective as ROT-13 at protecting our spoilers. Just enough obfuscation to prevent reading by those who don't want to see, easy enough to break even an utter newbie can be taught how in one post.

Chron-dude, fountain of good ideas that should happen, but probably won't.

:D

[waterj2]

Enabling symbol text should not be hard. Just like enabling superscript and subscript, the necessary vB tags and their corresponding html tags can be set up in a couple minutes from the vBulletin Control Panel. And it wouldn't even really be modifying the software, which would annoy the Chicago Reader. I can understand the couple thousand more pressing things, but it would be nice if you could sneak this in during a free minute.

Hmm, this reminds me, closing a "sup" tag should be the same as closing a "sub" tag. Let's see:

This is normal, but this is subscript[/sup] normal again [sup]and finally, superscript.

[waterj2]

Guess not. Oh well.

[zut]

Methinks, waterj2 that sub and sup work thusly:

sub = make subsequent text LOWER, and size = small
/sub = make subsequent text HIGHER, and size = large
sup = make subsequent text HIGHER, and size = small
/sup = make subsequent text LOWER, and size = large
so that the "/sup" is NOT equivalent to a "/sub" because "/sup" is "lower text position", not "restore text position."

You can use this to make text of different sizes in different places:

textsuperscriptsuper-superscriptsuper-super-superscript

or, if you want: text[/sub]higher text[/sub]even higher text[/sup][/sup]

or even[/sub]up[/sub]upand away (in tiny letters)in my beautifulbeautiful[/sup]B[/sup]A[/sup]L[/sup]L[/sup]O[/sup]O[/sup]N [/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

Of course, you have to deal with sans sefif-to-serif font change.

[Arnold Winkelried]

Originally posted by waterj2
Enabling symbol text should not be hard. Just like enabling superscript and subscript, the necessary vB tags and their corresponding html tags can be set up in a couple minutes from the vBulletin Control Panel.

I don't know waterj2. I'm not an HTML expert but to allow the Symbol font I would think you need to allow the <font> HTML tag, and once you allow that how would you restrict people to only using Symbol at a "reasonable" font size?

[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 03-01-2001 at 03:28 PM]

[rowrrbazzle]

zut - The cascading super/sub is cool. Now I have to find an excuse to use it. There must be a few theorems involving 22n :)

But the "higher text" trick only works if you're viewing with Netscape. With IE5 there is no effect at all.

[Lord Jim]

Arnold, what Waterj2 is looking for is something like:
vB code = <font face="symbol"> HTML tag
vB code = </font> HTML tag

So you would type: symbols stuff
and it would be translated to: <font face="symbol">symbols stuff</font>

You couldn't add any other parameters to the <font> tag. However, using the [/sym] without the opening tag might lead to an undocumented "feature".

Jim

[Derleth]

I tried an unmated </font> tag here at the FFFMB:

http://fff.fathom.org/ubb/Forum12/HTML/000222.html

It just disappeared, with no averse effects farther down. I'll be trying more devious tricks (but perhaps not there).

[Derleth]

On the FFFMB, an unmated <font face="symbol"> tag only affects the rest of your post, not any of the posts below. Kinda like an unmated "b" tag here, 'cept different. :D

[Chronos]

Quoth Derleth:
Wingdings, if it's ever supported, might be as effective as ROT-13 at protecting our spoilers.Unless, of course, one has trained oneself to read wingdings... But then, I suppose that any such person would also read ROT-13. Seriously, though, that is a genuinely good idea.

Over the holidays, the physics department had a big construction-paper poster up in the atrium with "Merry Christmas" or an equivalent benediction in a multitude of languages. Among those represented were Wingdings and ASCII hex.

[Tranquilis]

OK, I'm offically stumped. I've been converting the code of a Word document from Word'95 to Word2000, and the last remaining element that presents a risk for corruption is a symbol. It's Microsft Symbol 61537. In Unicode, it's 221D. I can't find, for the life of me, if there's an <alt> sequence that will enter this symbol directly, or if I have to continue to rely on the MS Symbol font.

Any thoughts?

[käse]

I'm stumped too.

But then; I know nothing about computers. Don't wanna know either.:p

How come I can make those ä Ä ç Ç

like in käse or Curaçao ?

[Derleth]

Originally posted by käse
I'm stumped too.

But then; I know nothing about computers. Don't wanna know either.:p

How come I can make those ä Ä ç Ç

like in käse or Curaçao ? I'm assuming you are using a nonstandard keyboard. Are those letters keys on your keyboard? It might help if you tell us where you bought it. It might be a European model.

BTW, I'm glad to see this thread is back in the running.

[käse]

errrrrm. I bought the keyboard in Holland. But it's in English. [enter-delete-page down- are not Dutch words ;)]
There's also the $$$ key.

No, those ä ü & ç aren't keys. I use the " above a letter. Or a '

Can you see this: €

?

That's the Euro sign. That's not on my keyboard either. I hit ctrl + alt and then 5.

Thank you for helping me understand. I'm a :wally

[Derleth]

OK. You apparently have 'dead keys', or keys that are normally defined as actual keys that, in some contexts, modify other keys to send special characters to the computer.

You apparently know what you're doing.

And, yes, I can see the Euro symbol. :)

[käse]

:eek: dead keys? ;)

Thank you. I don't think I know what I'm doing, but thank you.:)

[RTFirefly]

It's easy to get a lot of these alternate letterings by punching in the right 4-digit sequence on the number pad while holding down the Alt key.

You can find what does what by going to one of the standard fonts (like Arial or Times New Roman) on the Character Map.

For instance, you go there and find Ç. Click on it, and the toolbar at the bottom tells you that Alt-0199 gets you the capital-C-with-cedilla. Or Alt-0162 allows you to put in your 2¢ worth, Alt-0186 enables you to complain that it feels like it's 105º in your office, and with Alt-0248, you can type in the møøse credits from MP&HG. With Alt-0191, you can use the interrogative in Spanish (¿Que pasa, hombre?), and Alt-0161 allows Spanish exclamations (¡Viva Ché!).

Alt-0128 gets you €uros, but I've a ¥en to see what Alt-0165 produces.

Etcetera. :)

[tomndebb]

Just gathering related threads together with a link to the good info provided in

Special symbols, redux (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=280065)

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

ALT + 0164 is ¤

[wolf_meister]

Bosda
I was thinking of posting a link to my website, but some people think I promote it too much. However, now that this question has been raised in ATMB then here is where you can go to find a great many of those symbols:

http://www.1728.com/altchar.htm

(My site is free. No log-ins. No advertising - and is dishwasher safe.)

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Bosda
I was thinking of posting a link to my website, but some people think I promote it too much. However, now that this question has been raised in ATMB then here is where you can go to find a great many of those symbols:

http://www.1728.com/altchar.htm

(My site is free. No log-ins. No advertising - and is dishwasher safe.)


☼?

Hmmm...some codes are not SDMB friendly, but it is a good page, altogether.

Many thanks.