How to Write Special Characters and Symbols in Windows

Special characters are characters that are not present on your keyboard layout. They are accessible by pressing a combination of keys on the keyboard or using the Character Map within Windows.

Affected Operating Systems:

• Windows

How to open the Character Map (Windows 11 and Windows 10)

The Character Map can be used to search for available characters in selected fonts. You can copy and paste the selected character in the appropriate location.

1. From the search box, type Character Map and then select Character Map (App) from the results.

Figure 1: Character Map

How to type special characters in Windows

You can use alt codes to display special characters in Windows. By holding down the Alt key and pressing a specific sequence of numbers, you can display characters without using software tools like the Character Map.

How to type special characters on a Windows laptop:

For laptops that have a number lock-activated keyboard integrated into the keyboard, turning on the Number Lock activates the number pad option of your integrated keyboard. These keys have the numbers in different colors below the letters or symbols. To activate the number pad keys on some models, you must enable the Number Lock by pressing the Fn+F2 combination.

Figure 2: Example of a laptop keyboard

How to type special characters on a Windows desktop:

For desktops, turn on the Number Lock on your keyboard and use the Number Pad section of keys.

Figure 3: Example of a desktop keyboard

Alt codes

The table below contains an example of common special characters and their associated alt codes.

More information about alt codes can be found at https://www.alt-codes.net/.