Your (document is) Special
Key to scientific communication with documents are keys (obviously!).
By this I am referring to the keyboard and the special characters one can gain access to in most common fonts. Remembering how to access special characters is the way to ensure that your documents read correctly across platforms and software versions.
Below is a list of commonly used special characters. To make these appear in your document, hold down the Shift and/or Option key while pressing the letter for that character.
How to type a Degree symbol °
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0176 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Shift and Option keys and press 8
OR
Hold down the Option key and press k
How to type a Micro µ
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0181 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option key and press M
How to type an Asymptotic ≈
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0247 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option key and press X
How to type a delta Δ
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0916 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option key and press J
How to type a bullet symbol •
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0149 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option key and press 8
How to type a Section Symbol §
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0167 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option key and press 6
How to type a Dagger †
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0134 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option key and press T
How to type a Double Dagger ‡
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0135 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Shift and Option keys then press 7
How to type an em-dash —
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0151 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Shift and Option keys then press the minus key
How to type en-dash –
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0150 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option key and press the minus key
How to type a square root radical sign √
On Windows:
Hold down the ALT key and type 0251 on the keypad
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option key and press v
How to type a fraction bar ⁄
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Shift and Option keys then press the one (1) key
How to type an ellipsis …
On Mac OS:
Hold down the Option keys then press the semi-colon (;) key
CAUTION
It’s quite common amongst Microsoft Word users to use the insert symbol function. In my experience this always leads to incorrect substitutions when the document gets passed around electronically, so I would AVOID using this as a way to put special characters in your document.
A tell tale sign of this is is when an “mm” gets inserted when the writer meant to communicate a “micron”—a pretty large difference! And please don’t be tempted to type a “um” when you wish to convey a micron!
In short, knowing how to access Special Characters comes in very handy when you’re creating a text document.
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This work by http://blogs.cornell.edu/collinslab/ is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.