In this guide
A special character is any character that is not printed on your keys. The degree sign in a weather report, the em dash in a sentence, the arrow in a set of instructions, the é in café and the € in a price are all special characters. They are not rare. Most people need a few of them every week and look up the same ones again and again.
Every one of them can be typed. The method depends on the device in front of you, and there are usually two or three ways that work. This guide covers all of them, from the fastest shortcut to the method that works on any machine, and ends with a short list of the characters people search for most.
What makes a character “special”
Every character you can see on a screen has a number. That number comes from Unicode, the international standard that assigns a code point to each letter, digit, symbol and emoji in every writing system. The degree sign is U+00B0, the em dash is U+2014 and the euro sign is U+20AC. Because the number is the same everywhere, a degree sign typed on a Mac arrives as a degree sign on a Windows laptop or a phone.
A keyboard only has room for about a hundred keys, so it prints the characters its language uses most and hides the rest behind modifier keys, menus and codes. “Special” simply means “not on a key”. Which characters count as special depends on the keyboard: ñ is a key on a Spanish layout and a special character on an American one.
If you see an empty box or a question mark instead of a character, the character is still there. The font on that device has no drawing for it. Changing the font, or viewing the text on another device, usually brings it back.
The fastest method on each device
The quickest way to type a character depends on how often you need it. For a character you use every day, learn its shortcut. For one you need once a month, a picker or a search is faster than remembering a code.
| Device | Fastest for common characters | Works for any character |
|---|---|---|
| Windows | Alt codes on the number pad | Emoji and symbols panel (Windows key + period) |
| Mac | Option key shortcuts | Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space) |
| Linux | Compose key, if enabled | Ctrl + Shift + U, then the code |
| iPhone and iPad | Press and hold a key | Copy and paste |
| Android | Press and hold a key | Symbols pages of the keyboard |
| Any browser | Copy and paste | Insert Unicode Characters |
Windows
Alt codes
Hold the Alt key, type a number on the numeric keypad and release Alt. The character appears where the cursor is. Alt + 0176 gives a degree sign, Alt + 0151 an em dash and Alt + 0128 the euro sign. Codes that start with 0 come from the Windows character set; the shorter codes, like Alt + 3 for ♥, come from the old DOS code page and still work in most programs.
Alt codes need the separate number pad on the right of a full keyboard, with Num Lock on. The number row above the letters does not work. On a laptop without a number pad, use one of the next two methods instead. Our guide to Alt codes has the full list.
The emoji and symbols panel
Press the Windows key and the period key together. A panel opens with emoji, and in Windows 11 it also has a tab for symbols, with punctuation, currency, Latin letters with accents, Greek, math and arrows. Click a character to insert it. This works in almost every program and needs no codes.
Character Map and Microsoft Word
Character Map is a small program that comes with Windows. Search for it from the Start menu, pick a font, find the character and copy it. In Microsoft Word you can also type a code point and press Alt + X: type 2014, press Alt + X and Word turns it into an em dash. Word’s Insert, Symbol menu does the same with a mouse.
Mac
Option key shortcuts
A Mac keyboard hides a second set of characters behind the Option key, and a third behind Option and Shift. On a US layout, Option + Shift + 8 gives a degree sign, Option + Shift + hyphen an em dash, Option + Shift + 2 the euro sign, Option + G a copyright sign and Option + 2 the trademark sign. The exact keys change with the keyboard layout you have chosen.
Accents by pressing and holding
Press and hold a letter key, such as e, and a small menu of accented versions appears above it. Type the number under the one you want. You can also use dead keys: Option + E followed by a letter adds an acute accent, so Option + E then e gives é. Our guide to typing accents covers every combination.
Character Viewer
Press Control + Command + Space, or choose Edit, Emoji and Symbols in most apps. A small window opens with emoji; click the icon in its corner to expand it to the full Character Viewer, where you can search for any character by name, such as “arrow” or “check”.
Linux and ChromeOS
Most Linux desktops, and ChromeOS, accept Unicode code points directly. Press Ctrl + Shift + U, release, type the code point in hexadecimal and press Enter or Space. Ctrl + Shift + U, then 2014, then Enter gives an em dash.
Many Linux users also turn on a Compose key in the keyboard settings. With it, characters are typed as short sequences that are easy to remember: Compose, o, o gives a degree sign, and Compose, minus, minus, minus gives an em dash.
iPhone and Android
On both iPhone and Android, the default keyboards hide related characters behind each key. Press and hold, and a row of alternatives appears; slide your finger to the one you want and release.
- Degree sign: press and hold 0 on the iPhone number keyboard. On Gboard, it is on the second page of symbols.
- Dashes: press and hold the hyphen key to get the en dash and the em dash.
- Currency: press and hold the dollar sign to get €, £, ¥ and others.
- Accents: press and hold the letter.
For anything not hidden behind a key, such as arrows or check marks, copy the character from a page like ours and paste it. You can also save text replacements on your phone so that a short code, like “ckm”, turns into ✓ as you type.
Codes that work everywhere
Two kinds of code work no matter which device you use, which makes them useful to know even if you rarely type them.
Unicode code points
Every character has a code point written as U+ followed by four or more hexadecimal digits. If you know it, you can type it on Windows in Word (code, then Alt + X), on Mac with the Unicode Hex Input keyboard (hold Option and type the code), and on Linux and ChromeOS (Ctrl + Shift + U, then the code). The Unicode code charts list every one.
HTML entities
On a web page, characters can be written as entities so they survive any editor or encoding problem. Many have names: ° for °, — for —, € for €, → for → and ✓ for ✓. Every character can also be written by number, such as — for the em dash. The HTML standard lists all the named ones.
When copy and paste is the better choice
Shortcuts are worth learning only for characters you use often. For everything else, copying is faster and less error prone: search for the character by name, click it, paste it. That is what our Insert Unicode Characters tool is for. It holds about 1,950 characters in twelve groups, from punctuation and currency to arrows, math, shapes and dingbats, and shows each one’s code point, HTML entity and how to type it yourself.
Copy and paste also avoids a common mistake: characters that look alike but are not the same. A hyphen, an en dash, an em dash and a minus sign are four different characters. A degree sign and a masculine ordinal (º) look almost identical in many fonts. When you copy from a list that names each character, you get the one you meant.
The characters people look up most
These are the special characters people search for most often, with the quickest way to type each one.
| Character | Name | Windows | Mac | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ° | Degree sign | Alt + 0176 | Option + Shift + 8 | ° |
| — | Em dash | Alt + 0151 | Option + Shift + hyphen | — |
| – | En dash | Alt + 0150 | Option + hyphen | – |
| € | Euro sign | Alt + 0128 | Option + Shift + 2 | € |
| © | Copyright | Alt + 0169 | Option + G | © |
| ™ | Trademark | Alt + 0153 | Option + 2 | ™ |
| ♥ | Heart | Alt + 3 | Character Viewer | ♥ |
| ✓ | Check mark | Symbols panel | Character Viewer | ✓ |
| → | Right arrow | Alt + 26 | Character Viewer | → |
| é | e with acute | Alt + 0233 | Option + E, then e | é |
Each of these has its own guide on this site, with the variants, the shortcuts for every device and the mistakes to avoid: the degree symbol, the em dash, the euro sign, the heart symbol, the check mark, arrow symbols and accents.
Frequently asked questions
What are special characters?
Special characters are characters that are not printed on the keys of your keyboard, such as symbols, accented letters, currency signs, dashes and arrows. Which characters count as special depends on the keyboard layout you use.
How do I type special characters on a laptop without a number pad?
On Windows, press the Windows key and the period key to open the emoji and symbols panel, or use Character Map. On a Mac, use the Option key shortcuts or the Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space). Copying from a character list also works on any laptop.
Why does a special character show as a box or a question mark?
The font on that device has no drawing for that character, or the text was saved in an encoding that could not store it. The first problem is solved by a font that includes the character; the second by saving the file as UTF-8.
Are special characters allowed in passwords?
Most services accept common symbols such as ! @ # $ % and many accept any printable character, but some reject accented letters or uncommon symbols. If a site refuses a password, try replacing the less common characters with standard keyboard symbols.