Want to type special characters like the copyright symbol, pound or euro symbol, etc.? You can use a built-in tool to do it. Here’s how.
Though not every day, there might be times where you need to type a special kind of character in a document, field, or form. Generally, keyboards already have a ton of most use special characters on them. Brackets, currency symbols, punctuation marks, country-specific symbols, etc., are a few examples. All you have to do is press the relevant key or key combination, and the special character will appear on the screen.
However, if you want to type obscure or less used special characters, you need to know where to find them. For example, to type the degree symbol in Word or the copyright symbol, or the pound or the euro sign, you either need to know the specific alt code or know where to find the special characters in Windows 10.
The good thing, for a long time now, Windows has a neat little built-in tool called Character Map. Using this tool, you can type almost any special character in Windows 10, 7, and 8.
This quick and straightforward guide lets me show you how to use the Character Map tool to type special characters in Windows 10.
Type special characters with Character Map
To type special characters, you can use the Character Map tool. Here is how to open the Character Map tool and use it in simple steps.
- Open the Start menu.
- Search and open “Character Map.”
- Find the special character you want.
- Double-click on the character.
- Click the “Copy” button.
- You can now paste the copied special character anywhere you want.
First, we need to open the Character Map tool. To do that, press the Windows key on your keyboard and then search for “Character Map” and open it.
After opening the tool, you will see a massive list of special characters. Find the special character of your choice and select it with a double-click. Once selected, you should see it in the “Characters to copy” field. After selecting, click on the “Copy” button to copy the selected character to the clipboard.
To make searching easy, you can type the character name in the “Search for” field and press the “Enter” button. As soon as you click the button, the character will show itself immediately if it exists in Character Map. Once you see it, double-click on the character and click the “Copy” button. In my case, I want to find the “Pound” symbol. So, I typed “pound” in the search field.
After copying the character, you can paste it into any document, form, or field by pressing the “Ctrl + V” keyboard shortcut.
That is all. It is that simple type special characters with the Character Map tool in Windows 10.
I hope that helps.
If you are stuck or need some help, comment below, and I will try to help as much as possible.