Your Mac’s keyboard makes it easy to type any of the standard characters—the ones used most frequently in everyday typing. But OS X lets you use hundreds of special characters that don’t.
Mac keyboard symbol shortcuts
Mac Keyboard Symbols Guide
- Fix keyboard input not behaving properly in OS X. If your keyboard is not working properly in OS X, there are a couple of things you can try to get it working again.
- To get the Keyboard Viewer to appear you first need to go to System Preferences and choose Keyboard. Then tick the box beside Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar. Now you’ll see an icon in.
You can input more text symbols on Macintosh computers with the use of keyboard than you see painted on your keyboard.
Diacritical (accents, umlauts)
To type accent characters, like ñ Á á in Spanish language, experiment with [Option] key. Note, that [A] + [B] stands for holding both keys pressed down at the same time. Just Like you hold [Shift] and [A] to make UPCASE 'A' letter. Virtual instruments software, free download.
Characters | Sequence | Name |
---|---|---|
Áá Éé Íí Óó Úú | [Option] + [E] followed by [Your Vowel] + (optional) [Shift] | Acute letters |
Àà Èè Ìì Òò Ùù | [Option] + [`] followed by [Your Vowel] + (optional) [Shift] | Grave accent |
Ââ Êê Îî Ôô Ûû | [Option] + [I] followed by [Your Vowel] + (optional) [Shift] | Circumflex |
Ää Ëë Ïï Öö Üü Ÿÿ | [Option] + [U] followed by [Your Vowel] + (optional) [Shift] | Umlaut |
Ãã Ññ Õõ | [Option] + [N] followed by [Your Vowel] + (optional) [Shift] | Tilde |
Several other diacritical letters are listed below in signs and symbols section because they're typed similarily to those.
Signs and symbols
System Preferences -> International
International' width=400 height=349> You can use standard built-in applet called 'Keyboard viewer' to make things easier. It displays an on-screen keyboard layout which changes when you press modifier keys like [Option] and [Shift]. Apple 10 key keyboard. This layout is also different for different languages you select, so Keyboard Viewer can also help you see which key stands for what characters if you switch to a different language.
To enable Keyboard Viewer
- Choose Apple menu ➢ System Preferences and click International.
- Click Input Menu, then select the check-box next to Keyboard Viewer.
- Select the 'on' check-box next to language whose keyboard layout you want to use.
- Choose Show Keyboard Viewer from the Input menu on the right side of the menu bar (the one that looks like a flag).
![Symbols Symbols](https://ipadhelp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/character-viewer-520x383.png)
Now, depending on the language you select, a flag will be in the menu bar. Whenever you want to type a special character, click the flag and select 'Show Keyboard Viewer'. When you press Shift and Option buttons, the on-screen keyboard will show up. And the good thing is, you don't have to keep a list of shortcut codes near you.
Keyboard shortcuts for symbols
While still using your own language, you can type symbols like '√ ∑ π ™ © æ £ ¢', etc. with your keyboard. Try pressing [Option] key, or [Option] + [Shift] combination with Keyboard Viewer open to see what else you need to press to make these special characters. For example, [Option] + [v] produces √.
Key | + [Option] | + [Option] + [Shift] | Key | + [Option] | + [Option] + [Shift] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A | å | Å | 1 | ¡ | ⁄ |
B | ∫ | ı | 2 | ™ | € |
C | ç | Ç | 3 | £ | ‹ |
D | ∂ | Î | 4 | ¢ | › |
E | ´ | 5 | ∞ | fi | |
F | ƒ | Ï | 6 | § | fl |
G | © | ˝ | 7 | ¶ | ‡ |
H | ˙ | Ó | 8 | • | ° |
I | ˆ | 9 | ª | · | |
J | ∆ | Ô | 0 | º | ‚ |
K | ˚ | Apple | ` | ` | |
L | ¬ | Ò | - | – | -- |
M | µ | Â | = | ≠ | ± |
N | ˜ | [ | “ | ” | |
O | ø | Ø | ] | ‘ | ’ |
P | π | ∏ | « | » | |
Q | œ | Œ | / | ÷ | ¿ |
R | ® | ‰ | ; | … | Ú |
S | ß | Í | ' | æ | Æ |
T | † | ˇ | , | ≤ | ¯ |
U | ¨ | . | ≥ | ˘ | |
V | √ | ◊ | |||
W | ∑ | „ | |||
X | ≈ | ˛ | |||
Y | ¥ | Á | |||
Z | Ω | ¸ |
So, for example, Apple logo symbol can be typed on Macs by simultaneously holding [Option], [Shift] and [K] keys.
You can also check out Macintosh character set at Adobe.com for a very nice table of characters / inputs.
Apple Mac OS X Character Viewer Find out how you can access and use built-in Character Viewer app (previously called Character Palette) on Mac OS X to insert special text symbols like characters from other languages and even emojis ☺. ☀ ☃ ♡ ℃ ℬℯ ℋℰℛℰ
More on fsymbols
❤ | ❥ | 웃 | 유 | ♋ | ☮ | ✌ | ☏ | ☢ | ☠ | ✔ | ☑ | ♚ | ▲ | ♪ | ✈ | ❞ | ¿ |
♥ | ❣ | ♂ | ♀ | ☿ | Ⓐ | ✍ | ✉ | ☣ | ☤ | ✘ | ☒ | ♛ | ▼ | ♫ | ⌘ | ❝ | ¡ |
♡ | ღ | ツ | ☼ | ☁ | ❅ | ♒ | ✎ | © | ® | ™ | Σ | ✪ | ✯ | ☭ | ➳ | 卐 | ✞ |
℃ | ℉ | ° | ✿ | ϟ | ☃ | ☂ | ✄ | ¢ | € | £ | ∞ | ✫ | ★ | ½ | ☯ | ✡ | ☪ |
Hi Rylan,
Welcome to Apple Discussions and the AppleWorks forum.
You're correct in assuming this may not be exactly the right place to post this question, but I sympathise with the difficulty you experienced in finding a 'right place.'
There are some IPA fonts available on the web for download, but many, if not all of the IPA symbols (eg. dʒ and ŋ ) can be found in the Unicode encoded fonts on your Mac.*
Most may not be available directly from the keyboard. To locate those that are, got to Syatem Preferences > International > Input menu and show the Keyboard Viewer. While you're there. check the box beside Character Palette to add it to the selection. And if you do not have US Extended selected as one of your keyboard choices, check the box beside this keyboard layout as well.* The Close the International pane to exit System Preferences.
If it's not already in the menu bar, these actions will add the Input menu toward the right end of your menu bar. It will appear as a small flag corresponding to your currently selected keyboard.
Keyboard viewer will show you the characters available directly from the keyboard, using the letter, symbol and number keys and using these keys and one or more of the modifier keys (shift, option, commant and ctrl).
Character Palette will show all of the characters available in the selected palette. You can drag and drop these characters from the palette into a word processor document.* Ŋ is character #406, ŋ is #407.
Regards,
Barry
*AppleWorks users note: AppleWorks cannot recognize or use characters using Unicode encoding, and characters ooutside the standard Roman set cannot be dragged into an AppleWorks document. Attempting to enter text using a Unicode keyboard layout will cause AppleWorks to immediately crash. You can have a Unicode layout listed in your input menu, and can use it with other applications, but you must use a Roman encoded KB layout with AppleWorks.
B
Welcome to Apple Discussions and the AppleWorks forum.
You're correct in assuming this may not be exactly the right place to post this question, but I sympathise with the difficulty you experienced in finding a 'right place.'
There are some IPA fonts available on the web for download, but many, if not all of the IPA symbols (eg. dʒ and ŋ ) can be found in the Unicode encoded fonts on your Mac.*
Most may not be available directly from the keyboard. To locate those that are, got to Syatem Preferences > International > Input menu and show the Keyboard Viewer. While you're there. check the box beside Character Palette to add it to the selection. And if you do not have US Extended selected as one of your keyboard choices, check the box beside this keyboard layout as well.* The Close the International pane to exit System Preferences.
If it's not already in the menu bar, these actions will add the Input menu toward the right end of your menu bar. It will appear as a small flag corresponding to your currently selected keyboard.
Keyboard viewer will show you the characters available directly from the keyboard, using the letter, symbol and number keys and using these keys and one or more of the modifier keys (shift, option, commant and ctrl).
Character Palette will show all of the characters available in the selected palette. You can drag and drop these characters from the palette into a word processor document.* Ŋ is character #406, ŋ is #407.
Regards,
Barry
*AppleWorks users note: AppleWorks cannot recognize or use characters using Unicode encoding, and characters ooutside the standard Roman set cannot be dragged into an AppleWorks document. Attempting to enter text using a Unicode keyboard layout will cause AppleWorks to immediately crash. You can have a Unicode layout listed in your input menu, and can use it with other applications, but you must use a Roman encoded KB layout with AppleWorks.
B
Apple Mac Os X Keyboard Symbols Shortcuts
Jan 4, 2011 10:08 AM