Something symbolic on the menu

Often times, I am frequently asked how to do a Euro symbol because someone needs to send information across the Channel or how to type a letter ‘c’ in a circle to indicate copyright. Then, of course, children with French or Spanish homework need to find vowels with ‘acutes’ and circumflexes’ and the like.

Both Word and PowerPoint include ‘Symbol’ on the ‘Insert’ menu. This opens up a dialog box with an array of Symbols in it. Later versions also include a panel of ‘Recently Used panel of Symbols’ so that you do not need to search for the one you used last time.

Regular Symbol users, though, will appreciate a faster approach, which allows you to type frequently used symbols as you go. Each of the ‘Normal Text’ symbols has a code which can be used with the ‘ALT’ key on keyboards which have a separate numeric pad. (Please note: this does not work with the numbers on the top row of the keyboard.)

Set ‘Number Lock’ on your numeric keypad, hold down the ‘ALT’ key and type ‘0128’ and see Euro symbol appear. Then, do the same with ‘0190’ and you get a three-quarters symbol, or ‘0186’ to get a ‘degrees’ symbol for recording temperature.

There are a number of handy lists of these codes, which can be used to learn any useful to you.