The day will come when you need to type a special character or symbol… and you won’t know what to do.
A ©, a £, or a ∑ will bring you to your knees.
Then… you’ll remember this post.
When It’s Not On Your Keyboard…
- Go to the black Apple in the top left-hand corner and choose System Preferences.
- Select Keyboard.
- On the Keyboard tab check Show Keyboard and Character Viewers in Menu Bar.
- Close System Preferences.
- On the right-hand side of the Menu Bar is a new icon that looks like a box with an asterisk inside.
- Click the icon and you have 2 options – Show Character Viewer and Show Keyboard Viewer.
- Choose Show Character Viewer.
The Character Viewer
The Character Viewer is broken into 3 sections:
- Sidebar – Characters are broken into 10 groups, e.g.; Arrows, Pictographs, etc.
- Character Window – The large block in the center shows all the available characters from a selected group.
- Font Pane – On the top right-hand side is a large view of the selected character and the Font name. You may change the Font by clicking on the symbol variations in the bottom left-hand cormer.
Click Add To Favorites to create your own character group.
On occasion this area may show Related Characters that may be of interest.
Using The Character Viewer
In any Application where you can enter text, open the Character Viewer, locate the character you need, and double-click it to add it to your text string.
When you finish using the Character Viewer, go to the Viewer icon in the Menu Bar and choose Hide Character Viewer.
Using The Keyboard Viewer
The Keyboard Viewer is extremely useful if you want to learn keystrokes for special characters.
Special Characters and Symbols are created using Modifier Keys. Modifier Keys are keys that can be held down to temporarily modify the normal action of another key, e.g.; Command, Shift, Function, Control, Option, Return, etc.
An example is the shortcut Option G. On its own the G key produces the character G, but press Option G and you get ©
- Click the viewer icon on the right-hand side of the Menu Bar and select Show Keyboard Viewer.
- A small US Keyboard appears on your screen.
- Click this keyboard on the bottom left or right edge to make it bigger.
- Holding down modifier keys or modifier key combinations show the resulting character on the keyboard.
- You can use the keystroke at that moment to enter a special character into a text string.
- At the same time you can make a mental note of the keystroke combination in case you need to use it again.
- When you finish using the Keyboard Viewer, go to the Viewer icon in the Menu Bar and choose Hide Keyboard Viewer.
That’s it™.
Have a great week.
Special thanks to Janet Lawton for suggesting this post.
Live in Los Angeles County and need Mac, iPad. or iPhone help, training, support, service, repair, or just want some questions answered…
Call me at 310-621-5679. I come direct to you. That’s as stress-free as it gets.
well! i had no idea i could do any of this! thanks a whole bunch guys!
Glad it helped 🙂 – John
Hello!
Normally my laptop showed in the upper left corner a dot to click on so as to make appear a whole list of insertable special characters and symbols. Nowadays I can’t make use of this utility anymore. Would you be so kind as to let me know how I can restore this? The laptop I use is a MacBook Pro, operation system 10.6.8
Thanks a lot!
Hi Robert – Go to System Preferences and click on the Keyboard button. Once you are there, click on the Keyboard tab and click “Show keyboard and emoji viewers in MZenu bar”. – John