Euro Symbol

Factual Questions
1

Quick Question.

I use Win2000 in college, and I can’t find a character map anywhere, and I just want to know how to get the Euro Symbol, what are the keystrokes for this particular symbol?

Oh and another thing on the topic of currency symbols.

Is the dollar sign an ‘S’ with line(s) running through it($)…if so what does it mean, where does it come from?

And is the sign used for Pounds(£) just a fancy ‘L’ with a line. I think this because the of the old LSD system which was in operation before decimalation, where ‘Pound’ was shortened to ‘lbs’, am I right?

And the Yen symbol is just a ‘Y’ with lines too, or a Japanese word to mean Yen/Money?

Do any other currencies have these symbols?

Tahnks a million to anyone who replies.

2

Alt 0128 give you € .

And character map is usually under Programs->Accesories->System Tools on windows 2000

3

This gives you the £ and the $ origins.

4

I don’t really use win2k, but what you need is a font suporting character set ISO 8859-15 (or unicode). In ISO 8859-15 is (decimal) symbol nr 164.

**
Allready answered by the master:
What does the S in the dollar sign represent? Short version: It’s for Pesos.

**More or less. The L comes originally from the latin expession libra pondo (lit. free weight, but also a pound weight) It was the root to the French word levre (pound).

I’ll leave the yen sign to someone else.

5

It’s (la) livre, which means both a pound Sterling and a pound weight. Levre (with a grave accent on the first “e”) means lip.

6

Thanks!
And what’s worse is that I checked it! (I had originally written ‘lievre’ (hare), but in preview I saw my error. Somehow I deleted the wrong vowel…)

7

You’re here on the Straight Dope Message Board, you might as well check the Straight Dope Archives.

There you would find: Why are pound and ounce abbreviated “lb.” and “oz.”?
… and pretty clearly the “LB” led to “L” led to the £-sign.

And, of course, someone else gave the link to What does the S in the dollar sign represent?

In addition to Yen being a Y with an equal-sign overlaid (ALT + 0166 gives you ¥), the Philippine peso is a P with an equal-sign overlaid (Sorry, I couldn’t locate the ALT + symbol, I’m fairly sure it’s there). So the use of an initial letter with an equal sign through it seems to be a somewhat common currency indicator. Far from universal, of course – as far as I know, it’s only those five (, £, €, ¥, P) currency abbreviations that do so, although I hasten to point out that many countries use the symbol to indicate their local currency: examples include Canada and Australia (whose currencies are called “dollar”) and Mexico (whose currency is called “peso”).

8

Nope. There is no symbol for peso in any of the font sets. My dad checked extremely thoroughly and this pissed him off to no end.

9

This is the first time I’ve heard of a symbol problem that won’t be solved by unicode! The peso sign was proposed as an addition to unicode as symbol #20B1 (hex), but for unknown reasons it was not included in ver. 3.0!
Are you sure that it is an official symbol? There is a specific page only for currency sumbols, and they list quite a few that I had never heard of. (Hand up everyone who can write a “Naira”, or a “Tugrik” sign!) (Here’s the page (PDF))
For more info than you want about unicode, go to http://www.unicode.org .

10

What does it take for a symbol to become official? This is the symbol used for Philippine currency on the streets and shopping malls of Manila.

11

Update!
Apparently the Peso symbol is in the pipeline to becoming accepted (together with characters for Tagalog,
Hanunóo, Buhid and Tagbanwa. (Are those different languages, with separate character sets? They all claim to come from Philippines)). It has been accepted by UTC, but is only halfway through ISO. For the current status, see this site.
So, just hang in a little longer Terminus!

12

Geez, talk about being thorough. All we asked for was a simple character for currency, and they come back with entire character sets that no one uses anymore. These are all indeed different languages with different character sets:
[ul]
[li] Tagalog[/li][li] Hanunóo[/li][li] Buhid[/li][li] Tagbanwa[/li][/ul]

Actually, Tagalog is written with Roman letters nowadays. I believe the other three alphabets may still be in use in some places, being carved on bamboo.

13

How do you type these without going to character map?

14

Notice the references to ALT+ ? On a PC, hold down the ALT key, then still holding down ALT, type the four-digit numeral on the numeric key pad to the right of the base keypad (be sure Num Lock is on).
ALT + 0162 gives you ¢
ALT + 0163 gives you £
ALT + 0166 gives you ¥
ALT + 0128 gives you € (although you may not have that character loaded in your font on an older machine)

ALT + 0153 gives you ™
ALT + 0169 gives you ©
ALT + 0174 gives you ®
ALT + 0176 gives you °

On Mac’s there is a similar method of pressing two keys, but I don’t know what the translation table looks like.

15

I remember downloading from MS and installing some time ago a patch which would "install"the Euro sign on my computer. It must not have taken because typing ALT + 0128 gives me just a little square.

16

Thanks Tomdeb I was using the numbers along the top of the keyboard.

Salior are you seeing the a little square where the rest of us are seeing the Euro symbol “€”?

17

yep, I just see a little square here --> “€”
and I remember installing some MS patch so I could get the Euro symbol… On the other hand it’s not like a major concern…

18

After downloading the patch for WIN 95 I can now get the Euro symbol by pressing the “Alt Gr” key and the dollar key together. €. This is on a Toshiba Laptop.

19

I apologize, I was forgetful, the Naira (currency in Nigeria) is designated as N with an equal sign superimposed over it. That makes six such symbols, then, although there may be others.

When I was in Nigeria,the naira was worth about a nickle, IIRC, and the only bills were one and five naira bills. So if you wanted to buy something that cost around USD 20, you gave them a wad of bills each worth about a US quarter. No wonder I forgot that currency.

20

What is the “Alt Gr” Key?