Word for Microsoft 365 Word 2021 Word 2019 Word 2016 Word 2013 Word 2010 Word Starter 2010 More…Less
You can easily insert a special character, fraction, or other symbol in your Word documents.
The most important thing to understand when inserting symbols, fractions, special characters, or international characters is that the font you use is critical. Not all fonts have the same characters in them. For example, the Elephant font has no fraction characters in it, while Verdana does. As a result it’s important to use the right font to find the symbol or character you want.
These marks are static symbols. If you’re looking for an interactive check box that you can click on to check or uncheck, see Make a checklist in Word.
Symbol such as currency (¥), music (♫), or check marks (✔)
-
Place your cursor in the file at the spot where you want to insert the symbol.
-
Go to Insert > Symbol.
-
Pick a symbol, or choose More Symbols.
-
Scroll up or down to find the symbol you want to insert.
Different font sets often have different symbols in them and the most commonly used symbols are in the Segoe UI Symbol font set. Use the Font selector above the symbol list to pick the font you want to browse through.
-
When you find the symbol you want, double-click it. The symbol will be inserted in your file.
-
Select Close.
Tip: If you want to make your symbol larger or smaller, select it and use the Font Size setting.
If you’re going to insert the same symbol often, consider setting up AutoCorrect to insert it for you. You can find more info about that here: Insert a check mark or other symbol using AutoCorrect.
-
Click or tap where you want to insert the special character.
-
Go to Insert > Symbol > More Symbols.
-
Go to Special Characters.
-
Double-click the character that you want to insert.
Tip: Many of the special characters have shortcut keys associated with them. If you want to insert that special character again in the future, just press the shortcut key. ALT+CTRL+C inserts the Copyright symbol (©), for example.
-
Select Close.
Some fractions (1/4, 1/2, and 3/4) automatically switch to a fraction character (¼, ½, ¾) when you type them. But others do not (1/3, 2/3, 1/5, etc.) so if you want to insert those as symbols you’ll need to use the insert symbol process.
-
Click or tapwhere you want to insert the fraction.
-
Go to Insert > Symbol > More Symbols.
-
In the Subset dropdown, choose Number Forms.
Note: Not all fonts have a number forms subset. If you don’t see the number forms subset available for your font you will have to use a different font, such as Calibri, to insert the fraction character.
-
Double-click the fraction that you want to insert.
-
Select Close.
Only a handful of common fractions have a symbol that you can substitute. For more unusual fractions, such as 8/9, you can approximate the symbol by setting the numerator as superscript and the denominator as subscript. For more information see Insert subscript or superscript text.
If you plan to type in other languages often you should consider switching your keyboard layout to that language. You can find more information about that at Enable or change a keyboard layout language.
For one-off characters there are almost always keyboard shortcuts in Office to do that. For example:
-
CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+? inserts a ¿
-
CTRL+SHIFT+~ followed immediately by «a» will insert ã.
-
CTRL+SHIFT+: followed immediately by «u» will insert ü.
For more info on international characters see: Keyboard shortcuts for international characters.
You can also use the character code of the symbol as a keyboard shortcut. Symbols and special characters are either inserted using ASCII or Unicode codes. You can tell which is which when you look up the code for the character.
-
Go to Insert >Symbol > More Symbols.
-
Scroll up or down the list to find the symbol you want. You might have to change the font or the subset to locate it.
Tip: The Segoe UI Symbol font has a very large collection of Unicode symbols to choose from.
-
Towards the bottom right you’ll see boxes for Character code and a from:. The character code is what you’ll enter to insert this symbol from the keyboard and the from: tells you what kind of character it is. If from: says «Unicode (hex)» it’s a Unicode character. If from: says «Symbol (Decimal)» then it’s an ASCII character.
Unicode
ASCII
ASCII and Unicode information and character tables
For more info about using ASCII or Unicode characters, see Insert ASCII or Unicode character codes.
Insert a check mark
For info on inserting a check mark, see Insert a check mark.
Need more help?
Want more options?
Explore subscription benefits, browse training courses, learn how to secure your device, and more.
Communities help you ask and answer questions, give feedback, and hear from experts with rich knowledge.
Microsoft Word symbols cannot be easily typed in using the keyboard.
However,
the need to include these characters in documents is increasingly common these
days.
Even when writing in English, foreign names of places and people may require some of these special characters.
Scientific writings also include mathematical symbols and Greek letters.
Text may also include characters like the degree symbol and copyright symbol.
There
are character codes you can use to enter a symbol in Word. However, most people
don’t have the time to memorize these character codes.
So, in this guide today, you’ll learn how to insert any symbol in Word either using the mouse pointer or a keyboard shortcut.
NOTE: There are several methods you can use to type symbols in Word. For me, the method I use to type symbols depends on how many and how frequently I need to type them. Keep reading to choose the best method for you
Without
further ado, below are the ways to type symbols in word
1st Method: Using Insert Symbols
This
method involves using the symbols dialog box located in the symbols area at the
right border of the insert tab.
Below are steps to insert symbols in MS Word using Insert Symbols.
NOTE: in the steps below, I’ll illustrate how to insert symbols in MS Word by inserting the greater than or equal to symbol. You can use the same steps to insert any symbol of your choice.
- STEP 1: Click to position the insertion point at where you want to insert the symbol. In this example, we will place the symbol between X and 10 as you can see in the above picture.
- STEP 2: Go to the Insert tab, in the Symbols group and click Symbol, then More Symbols.
NOTE: If the symbol you want to insert is found in the symbols gallery as shown in the picture above, click it to insert it into your document. Any symbol you use will move to the first position in the gallery. Thus, the symbol gallery box gives you access to the 20 most recently used symbols. However, if you can’t find the symbol you are looking for in the symbol gallery, click on More Symbols to display all the symbols.
- STEP 3: Select your desired font from the Font drop down. You can leave it as default (Normal text). You don’t have to explore every font in the list. However, it is worth looking at Wingdings or Symbol if you want a fancy symbol.
- Step 4: Scroll down or up until you find the required symbol, then
click to select it. You can also click the desired symbol in the Recently used
symbols. - Step 5: Click Insert to insert the selected symbol then click
to close the dialog. Alternatively, double-click on the desired symbol to
insert it into your document, then close the dialog.
As soon as you click insert or double-click the symbol, Word will insert it into your document.
2nd
Method: Using the keyboard to insert symbols in Word.
Not all the symbols in Word can be found on the keyboard.
However, all the symbols can be typed using the keyboard.
Typing symbols that are not found on the keyboard can be very tedious. In fact, it is not even necessary in Word because using the first method above is much easier and simple to compare with.
However, it is still useful to know as it becomes handy to obtain certain characters or symbols in software that has no access to Insert Symbol like in Microsoft Word.
Let’s use the following exercise for example:
- Turn on your Num Lock.
- Whilst holding down the [Alt] key, type [065]
on the numeric keypad (on the right). - Then release the [Alt] key. The letter A should
appear. - To type the letter B, repeat steps 2 and 3. But this
time type [Alt 066] on the numeric keypad. - [Alt 067] should give you C, and [Alt 068] should give
you D, and so on.
This
exercise isn’t really necessary because one can easily type in any letter
directly with the keyboard.
However, not all characters and symbols are on the keyboard. Hence let’s try out the following:
- Hold down the [Alt] and type [0176] for a degree sign (°)
- Type [Alt 0189] and [Alt 0190] for fractions (½ and ¾)
- Also try [Alt 0181] for µ
But
how do you remember the number for each symbol?
It’s
almost impossible to remember. It’s not even necessary.
Instead, you should make a note of the symbols or characters you use very often.
In the next section, you’ll learn how to get the shortcut to any symbol into your Word document.
How to find the keyboard shortcut for symbols in word
You
can use the Symbol dialog box to find the character code (or keyboard shortcut)
for any symbol or character.
This way you can insert symbols by typing them on your keyboard instead of using the Symbol dialog box.
Here’s how to learn the keyboard shortcut code for a particular symbol or character in Word:
- Open the Symbols dialog box.
To
display the Symbols dialog box, go to the Insert tab, in the
Symbols group and click Symbol, then More Symbols.
- Select the symbol you want to take note of, then look near
the bottom of the dialog for the symbol name as well as its code. - To insert any symbol using its character code, press down the
[Alt] key, type the code, then release the [Alt] key.
If you are lucky, you’ll see another shortcut key aside from the character code which is much easier to type than the code.
See
screenshot below:
Assigning
shortcut keys to symbols
In
Microsoft word, you are not limited to the default hotkeys.
You can assign any keyboard shortcut key to any command or symbol to fit your needs.
As
mentioned, each and every character or symbol in Microsoft Word has a character
code that you can use on the keyboard.
Aside from these character codes, Word still gives you the space to assign a shortcut key to any symbol.
Below
are the steps to do so:
- Open the Symbols dialog box.
To
display the Symbols dialog, navigate to the Insert tab, in the
Symbols group and click Symbol, then More Symbols. The Symbols
dialog box should display.
- Click to select the symbol to which you want to assign a shortcut.
- At the bottom area of the dialog, click Shortcut Key… The Customize Keyboard dialog box appears.
- Under Specify keyboard sequence, in the Press new shortcut key field, type the keyboard shortcut you want to assign for the symbol.
If the shortcut key you assign is already assigned for a command, Word will tell you that hey dude, the shortcut key you are assigning to this symbol is already taken by another command. If you ignore and continue to assign, Word will not stop you. However, this shortcut will not work again for the command it was previously assigned to. It will now work for this symbol.
- Click Assign to assign the shortcut.
NOTE: There is another box labeled Current keys. These are the current hotkeys assigned to the selected symbol. You can take note of these hotkeys without assigning another one for the same symbol.
Typing
any symbol in Word doesn’t have to be difficult as you can see.
If you don’t understand anything explained here, let me know in the comments section below for more clarification.
Thank you very much for reading this article.
Symbol such as currency (¥), music (♫), or check marks (✔)
- Place your cursor in the file at the spot where you want to insert the symbol.
- Go to Insert > Symbol.
- Pick a symbol, or choose More Symbols.
- Scroll up or down to find the symbol you want to insert.
- When you find the symbol you want, double-click it.
Contents
- 1 How do I make symbols with my keyboard in Word?
- 2 How do you enter special characters?
- 3 How do I get symbols on my keyboard Windows 10?
- 4 How do I use symbols on my keyboard?
- 5 How do I get symbols on my laptop?
- 6 How do I type Alt symbol?
- 7 How do I use Alt 164 on my laptop?
- 8 How do you type Alt 255 on a laptop?
- 9 How do you do the special O?
- 10 How do you type N?
- 11 How do you type a Spanish N on Windows 10?
- 12 How do I type special characters on my HP laptop?
- 13 How do you write ñ on a laptop?
- 14 How do you type invisible characters?
- 15 How do you type in Minecraft without numpad?
- 16 How do I type a Ö on a keyboard?
- 17 How do you add an accent mark?
- 18 How do I type an accent mark?
- 19 What is ENYE?
- 20 Is ñ a letter?
How do I make symbols with my keyboard in Word?
To insert an ASCII character, press and hold down ALT while typing the character code. For example, to insert the degree (º) symbol, press and hold down ALT while typing 0176 on the numeric keypad. You must use the numeric keypad to type the numbers, and not the keyboard.
How do you enter special characters?
In your document, position the insertion point where you want the special character to appear. Press and hold down the ALT key while you type the four number Unicode value for the character. Note that NUM LOCK must be on, and you have to use the number pad keys to type the Unicode character value.
How do I get symbols on my keyboard Windows 10?
To insert symbols or kaomoji on Windows 10, use these steps:
- Open a text file, document, or email.
- Use the Windows key + (period) or Windows key + (semicolon) keyboard shortcut to open the emoji panel.
- Click the Omega button to access the symbols.
- Select the symbols you want to insert.
How do I use symbols on my keyboard?
Hold the “Alt” key and type the proper ASCII code on the numeric keypad. When you release the “Alt” key, you should see your desired symbol on the screen.
How do I get symbols on my laptop?
Steps
- Find Alt code. Numeric Alt codes for symbols are listed in Alt codes list ☺♥♪ keyboard symbols.
- Enable Num Lk . You may need to simultaneously press [“FN” and ” Scr Lk “] keys.
- Hold down “Alt” key. Some laptops require you to hold both “Alt” and “FN” keys.
- Input Alt code of symbol on Keypad.
- Release all the keys.
How do I type Alt symbol?
To use an Alt code, press and hold down the Alt key and type the code using the numeric key pad on the right side of your keyboard. If you do not have a numeric keypad, copy and paste the symbols from this page, or go back try another typing method.
How do I use Alt 164 on my laptop?
Hold down the “Alt” key, and then type “164” using the numerical keypad to create a lowercase “ñ,” or type “165” to create an uppercase “Ñ.” On some laptops, you must hold down both the “Fn” and “Alt” keys while typing the numbers.
How do you type Alt 255 on a laptop?
Press and hold “Alt” key and while holding it, type digit keys 255 at the numeric keypad. 4. Release the “Alt” key. 5.
How do you do the special O?
Accented characters and shortcuts
Example 1: To type the letter ó, hold down the Control key, then press the apostrophe key. Release both keys and type o. The accented letter should appear. Example 2: To type the letter Ó, hold down the Control key, then press the apostrophe key.
How do you type N?
Press Ctrl + Shift + Tilde (~) and then type N for an uppercase Ñ. To create a lowercase ñ, press Ctrl + Shift + Tilde (~) and then type n.
How do you type a Spanish N on Windows 10?
On Windows:
- Accented vowels: press ctrl and ‘ at the same time, then press the vowel you want to put the accent on.
- Ñ: press control and ~at the same time, then press n.
How do I type special characters on my HP laptop?
Typing the alternate character on a key
To type the alternate character on a key, press the right Alt key and the desired key.
How do you write ñ on a laptop?
» Android Devices
- Hold or long-press the letter N/n on your phone’s keyboard, and a small pop-up will appear showing different accent marks.
- Slide and hover over to choose Ñ/ñ.
How do you type invisible characters?
Invisible character is ALT+255. You need 255 typed on the keypad. Not the one above QWERTY keys. You can use desktop keyboard to do this.
How do you type in Minecraft without numpad?
On Mac, it looks like if you hold ALT and type 6 , it will type the § sign ( ALT and 5 for extended U.S. keyboards). The other way is to use plugins that replace the § with something else. Looking around, it seems CommandBook for Bukkit may work. @EsbenBoye-Jacobsen what does alt + 5 give you?
How do I type a Ö on a keyboard?
Hold down the “alt” key on your keyboard and type one of these codes:
- ä : Alt + 0228.
- ö : Alt + 0246.
- ü : Alt + 0252.
- ß : Alt + 0223.
- Ä : Alt + 0196.
- Ö : Alt + 0214.
- Ü : Alt + 0220.
How do you add an accent mark?
To type a lowercase character by using a key combination that includes the SHIFT key, hold down the CTRL+SHIFT+symbol keys simultaneously, and then release them before you type the letter.
Keyboard shortcuts to add language accent marks in Word.
| To insert this | Press |
|---|---|
| â, ê, î, ô, û Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û | CTRL+SHIFT+^ (CARET), the letter |
| ã, ñ, õ Ã, Ñ, Õ | CTRL+SHIFT+~ (TILDE), the letter |
How do I type an accent mark?
You’ll use the Ctrl or Shift key along with the accent key on your keyboard, followed by a quick press of the letter. For example, to get the á character, you’d press Ctrl+’ (apostrophe), release those keys, and then quickly press the A key.
What is ENYE?
The enye (ñ), according to Wikipedia, is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet that is formed by placing a tilde on top of the letter N. The enye letter became a part of the Spanish alphabet in the 18th century.
Is ñ a letter?
The only letter in the Spanish alphabet that originated in Spain, the Ñ is not only a letter but a representation of Hispanic heritage and identity as well.Thus, “annus,” Latin for “year,” evolved into the Spanish “año.”
Your average keyboard has enough letters, numbers, and punctuation marks for all your day-to-day typing needs. But what if you need symbols or special characters that aren’t on your keyboard?
Well, in Microsoft Word, you have three main options:
- Use the Symbol menu.
- Learn some ASCII codes.
- Use Microsoft Word’s special character shortcuts.
In the rest of this post, we’ll look at how to do each of these in your writing. Watch the video or read the post below to get started:
1. Using the Symbol Menu
To see the Symbol menu in Microsoft Word, go to Insert > Symbols on the ribbon and click the Symbol button (or Insert > Advanced Symbol > Symbols in the menu system in Word for Mac).
This will open a quick access menu of 20 frequently used symbols to pick from. However, you can also access the full range of special characters in Microsoft Word as follows:
- Go to Insert > Symbols and click Symbol to open the menu.
- Click More Symbols… to open a new window.
- Scroll through until you find the symbol you want to use.
- Click Insert to add the symbol to your document.
The symbol will then appear in your document at your cursor. Microsoft Word will also add it to the quick access menu, saving your time if you need to use the same symbol again.
2. ASCII Codes
ASCII codes each indicate a different symbol, so you can use them to add special characters to a document quickly via the numeric keypad:
- Learn or look up the correct ASCII code for the symbol(s) you need.
- Turn on Num Lock on your keyboard to activate the numeric keypad.
- Hold down the Alt key and type the required code.
The corresponding symbol will then appear at your cursor position.
3. Shortcuts for Special Characters
For some special characters, your simplest option is to let Microsoft Word do the hard work! There are, for example, shortcuts available for the following common symbols:
|
Special Character |
Shortcut |
Autocorrect Option |
|
Trademark symbol (™) |
Ctrl + Alt + T |
Write “TM” in parentheses |
|
Registered trademark symbol (®) |
Ctrl + Alt + R |
“R” in parentheses |
|
Copyright symbol (©) |
Ctrl + Alt + C |
“C” in parentheses |
|
Closed Ellipsis (…) |
Ctrl + Alt + . |
Three periods without spaces |
|
Euro (€) |
Ctrl + Alt + E |
“E” in parentheses |
You’ll notice we’ve included an “autocorrect” version for each symbol above. In these cases, Microsoft Word will automatically correct the specified text to create the symbol.
Find this useful?
Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.
For example, to add a trademark symbol to a document, we have two options:
- Hold down Ctrl + Alt + T at the same time.
- Write “(TM)” and let Microsoft Word change this to the symbol.
These shortcuts are very quick and simple, so it is worth memorizing them if you use any of these symbols frequently. Similar shortcuts are also available for accented letters.
Microsoft Word is a software tool that allows us to create documents file like articles, office letters, projects files and many more in a very simplest and easy manner. MS Word makes our document more attractive as compared to paper or file work by providing different features like it has different sizes of pages, fonts, colors, design, bullets, tables, charts, page border/number, and many more.
It also provides various features like editing, texting, formatting, graphics designs, fonts color and styles, inserting images, videos, printing documents etc.
This MS Word software saves our articles/letters in a form of a document and saves them on the computer forever. Whenever it is required it can be shared or can access the document.
Features of MS Word
- Images- MS Word provides the inserting of various images in our document.
- Videos- We can insert videos in our document
- Fonts Styles- It has a wide range of font styles for our text.
- Colors- It also has different types of colors to make our document more attractive.
- Page number and size- You can set the size of the page of your document
- WordArt- It provides various writing styles for our documents.
- Tables- Tables in MS Word are used to represent data in Tabular form
- Graph and Charts- These are used to represent statistical data
- Animations and Designs- MS Word allows the creation of Animations and designs as per user needs
- Page border/color- MS Word allows adding borders and colors to pages.
What are Symbols in MS Word?
Microsoft Word has a special features called symbols in which user can insert many different types of symbols in the document.
MS Word has a variety of symbols, special characters, fractions, languages, etc. We can insert the symbols and special characters with the help of the Symbol dialog box present in MS Word.
Some pictures of symbols in MS Word are:
Steps to Add Symbols in MS Word
Step 1: On the navigation menu click on the insert option.
Step 2: On the right-hand side of the navigation menu select the Symbol option as shown in figure:
Step 3: Next select the symbol from the menu as per your need.
Step 4: You can also select more different types of symbols by just clicking on the More Symbols option as shown in the figure:
Step 5: A symbol dialog box will be pop up on the screen.
Step 6: Now click on the symbols option as shown in the figure:
Step 7: Next click on the drop-down arrow of the font box to change the font style of symbols.
Step 8: Select the font style from the style menu.
Step 9: Next click on the drop-down arrow of subset box to select the different categories of the symbols.
Step 10: Select the symbol category from the menu.
Step 11: Select the symbol as per your choice as shown in the figure:
Step 12: Then click on the insert option to insert the symbol on your current page of the document.
Note – You can also search for a particular symbol using its character code as shown in the figure:
Step 13: Enter the symbol character code in the character code box.
Step 14: Select the option (UNICODE, ASCII) as shown in the figure:
Step 15: Then click on the insert option.
Step 16: Close the symbol dialog box as shown in the figure:
Finally, the symbol is added to your document.
Steps to Insert Special Symbols in MS Word
Step 1: Click on the Symbol option from the navigation menu.
Step 2: Select the More Symbols option as shown in the figure:
Step 3: A symbol dialog box will open.
Step 4: Now select the special characters option as shown in the figure:
Step 5: Select the special character as per your choice from the menu.
Step 6: Click on the insert option to continue.
Step 7: Close the symbol dialog box.
Finally, special characters symbol is added to your document.
These are some of the steps to insert symbols and special characters in the document.