Special characters and symbols: universal shortcuts
Emoji, accented letters, typographic dashes and HTML codes: how to type a special character on Windows, macOS and mobile.
Emoji and symbols
| Shortcut | System | Action |
|---|---|---|
Win + . or Win + ; |
Windows | Emoji and symbols panel |
Ctrl + Cmd + Space |
macOS | Character and emoji viewer |
Win + R, type charmap |
Windows | Full character map |
Common accented and special characters
| Character | Windows (Alt + code) | macOS |
|---|---|---|
| € | Alt + 0128 |
Alt + Shift + 2 |
| — (em dash) | Alt + 0151 |
Alt + Shift + - |
| … (ellipsis) | Alt + 0133 |
Alt + ; |
| " " (curly quotes) | Word autocorrect | Alt + ] / Alt + Shift + ] |
| ✓ | Wingdings font | via the character viewer |
Handy HTML codes
non-breaking space — — … … © © é é
On a phone, a long press on a letter (e.g. "e") shows its accented variants (é, è, ê, ë) — the fastest way to type them correctly without a dedicated keyboard layout.
Direct Unicode codes
On Windows, typing a character's hexadecimal Unicode code then pressing Alt + X (in Word, notably) converts it instantly:
2764 + Alt+X → ❤ 2192 + Alt+X → → 00E9 + Alt+X → é
Common math and currency symbols
| Symbol | Name | HTML code |
|---|---|---|
| × | Multiplication | × |
| ÷ | Division | ÷ |
| ± | Plus or minus | ± |
| € | Euro | € |
| £ | Pound sterling | £ |
| ° | Degree | ° |
On mobile: the symbols keyboard
| Action | iOS | Android |
|---|---|---|
| Access symbols | "123" icon then "#+=" | "?123" icon then "=<" |
| Emoji | Globe/smiley icon | Dedicated smiley icon |
| Accented characters | Long-press the base letter | Long-press the base letter |
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