Can’t find that special symbol?
The Unicode Character Set
How to Get the Symbol You Need
The Unicode¹ character set is something that doesn’t seem to get talked about much lately, and with all the graphic emojis and whatnot available, it seems like there’s less demand for knowing how to generate some of the more obscure symbols. The Unicode character set currently consists of 144,697 digital codes representing a set of unprintable computer control codes, as well as a set of Roman characters, including all the numerals and upper- and lower-case alphabet characters, plus an assortment of foreign/ancient language, math and formatting symbols.
The control codes are probably not that useful to many people who are not programmers. Some of the other characters are very useful. I had to look one up for a recent article I posted here, on the topic of superheated water. I needed the degree symbol, and tracked down a Unicode table to find the character code for it.
The Unicode character set has some oddball symbols that do not appear on keyboards, but that you may find useful. I thought I’d throw a few of those out there for your consideration. The link at the bottom of this article points to a page with some of the more useful Unicode codes. I tabulated a few here:
To get these symbols into your own documents, on a PC, hold down the ALT key and key the 4-digit code on the number pad. The numbers across the top of the keyboard will not work. It has to be done using the keypad. That is really all there is to it.
Another tip, if you find there is a special character you use often, is to make a file on your computer containing special characters. Then, those characters will be right there to copy & paste, without the overhead of having to type in key codes.
