Greetings, dear readers! Today I will show you how to type special characters on your keyboard using the Alt key. If you didn’t quite understand from the title of the article what we’re talking about, I’ll explain in more detail.

There are symbols that are simply not on the keyboard, but they can be used quite often (paragraph icon, arrow, suit, heart). The question immediately arises of how to write this or that character that is not on the keyboard. How to do this will be discussed in this article.

Here are examples of such symbols:

☻☺ ♣♠◘○♀♪♂☼ ↕☼↓→§

Naturally, these are not all symbols, there are many more of them. You can find a complete table with these symbols just below.

And now I will tell you how to print these characters.

So, already from the name it is clear that we will use the Alt key! But we will need other keys too!

In the picture below you can see all the keys we will need and where they are:

So, to print this or that character, you need to hold down the Alt key and, using the additional panel with numbers, type the code of the character we need (character codes can be taken from the table below). Moreover, it is important to follow the sequence, that is, if you first press 1 and then 2, then a symbol with number 12 will pop up, and if you do the opposite: first 2, and then 1, then a completely different symbol with number 21 will pop up.

For example, the emoticon code (☺) is 1. This means that to print an emoticon, you need to press the Alt key and, without releasing it, click on “1” in the additional panel with numbers, then you need to release the Alt key and the symbol will be printed.

To type an arrow (→) with code 26, you need to hold down the Alt key, then alternately press first “2”, then “6”, and then release the Alt key. The symbol will be printed immediately.

Here is a table of the most common characters with their numbers:

This was the easiest way to print these characters, but not the only one.

There is also such a thing as a symbol table. No, we are not talking about the yellow table above. Every Windows computer has this Symbol Table application.

This application is located in this location:

There's a bunch of stuff in this folder system files, including “charmap”. To avoid looking for it in that giant list, use the hot combination Ctrl keys+ F and type “charmap” into the search. After launching the application, the following table will open:

You need to find and select the symbol you need, then copy it from the bottom line and paste it into the place you need. Quite convenient too!

What is alt code? Alt code is the characters that are displayed when you press the key combination on the keyboard Alt + X, where X is a set of numbers (a specific number) on the NumPad. NumPAd is a block of numbers on the keyboard, usually located on the right. Alto symbols on a PC with operating systems Windows are not available when using a regular keyboard. They can only be called using additional commands. Hold down the ALT button and type the number in decimal system Reckoning. I hope everything is clear here. The Alt code table will help you navigate and find the right symbol.

Attention! Enter numbers on the side Num-pad keyboard.

Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol
1	☺	21	§	41	)	61	=	81	Q	101	e	121	y
2	☻	22	▬	42	*	62	>	82	R	102	f	122	z
3		23	↨	43	+	63	?	83	S	103	g	123	{
4	♦	24		44	,	64	@	84	T	104	h	124	|
5	♣	25	↓	45	-	65	A	85	U	105	i	125	}
6	♠	26	→	46	.	66	B	86	V	106	j	126	~
7	.	27	←	47	/	67	C	87	W	107	k	127	⌂
8	◘	28	∟	48	0	68	D	88	X	108	l	128	A
9	○	29	↔	49	1	69	E	89	Y	109	m	129	B
10	◙	30	▲	50	2	70	F	90	Z	110	n	130	IN
11	♂	31	▼	51	3	71	G	91	[	111	o	131	G
12	♀	32	<пробел>	52	4	72	H	92	\	112	p	132	D
13	♪	33	!	53	5	73	I	93	]	113	q	133	E
14	♫	34	"	54	6	74	J	94	^	114	r	134	AND
15	☼	35	#	55	7	75	K	95	_	115	s	135	Z
16		36	$	56	8	76	L	96	`	116	t	136	AND
17	◄	37	%	57	9	77	M	97	a	117	u	137	Y
18	↕	38	&	58	:	78	N	98	b	118	v	138	TO
19	‼	39	"	59	;	79	O	99	c	119	w	139	L
20	¶	40	(	60	<	80	P	100	d	120	x	140	M

Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol
141	N	161	b	181	╡	201	╔	221	▌	241	e
142	ABOUT	162	V	182	╢	202	╩	222	▐	242	Є
143	P	163	G	183	╖	203	╦	223	▀	243	є
144	R	164	d	184	╕	204	╠	224	R	244	Ї
145	WITH	165	e	185	╣	205	═	225	With	245	ї
146	T	166	and	186	║	206	╬	226	T	246	Ў
147	U	167	h	187	╗	207	╧	227	at	247	ў
148	F	168	And	188	╝	208	╨	228	f	248	°
149	X	169	th	189	╜	209	╤	229	X	249	∙
150	C	170	To	190	╛	210	╥	230	ts	250	·
151	H	171	l	191	┐	211	╙	231	h	251	√
152	Sh	172	m	192	└	212	╘	232	w	252	№
153	SCH	173	n	193	┴	213	╒	233	sch	253	¤
154	Kommersant	174	O	194	┬	214	╓	234	ъ	254	■
155	Y	175	P	195	├	215	╫	235	s	255	<неразры prominent space>
156	b	176	░	196	─	216	╪	236	b	256	Ā
157	E	177	▒	197	┼	217	┘	237	uh	257	☺
158	YU	178	▓	198	╞	218	┌	238	Yu	258	☻
159	I	179	│	199	╟	219	█	239	I	259
160	A	180	┤	200	╚	220	▄	240	Yo	260	♦

English layout

Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol
0127	"?" (blank character)	0144	ђ	0160	<неразры prominent space>	0176	°	0192	À	0208	Ð	0224	à	0240	ð
0128	Ђ	0145	‘	0161	¡	0177	±	0193	Á	0209	Ñ	0225	á	0241	ñ
0129	Ѓ	0146	’	0162	¢	0178	²	0194	Â	0210	Ò	0226	â	0242	ò
0130	‚	0147	”	0163	£	0179	³	0195	Ã	0211	Ó	0227	ã	0243	ó
0131	ƒ	0148	”	0164	¤	0180	´	0196	Ä	0212	Ô	0228	ä	0244	ô
0132	„	0149	.	0165	¥	0181	µ	0197	Å	0213	Õ	0229	å	0245	õ
0133	…	0150	-	0166	¦	0182	¶	0198	Æ	0214	Ö	0230	æ	0246	ö
0134	†	0151	—	0167	§	0183	·	0199	Ç	0215	×	0231	ç	0247	÷
0135	‡	0152	˜	0168	¨	0184	¸	0200	È	0216	Ø	0232	è	0248	ø
0136	ˆ	0153	™	0169		0185	¹	0201	É	0217	Ù	0233	é	0249	ù
0137	‰	0154	š	0170	ª	0186	º	0202	Ê	0218	Ú	0234	ê	0250	ú
0138	Š	0155	›	0171	«	0187	»	0203	Ë	0219	Û	0235	ë	0251	û
0139	‹	0156	œ	0172	¬	0188	¼	0204	Ì	0220	Ü	0236	ì	0252	ü
0140	Œ	0157	ќ	0173	--n-------	0189	½	0205	Í	0221	Ý	0237	í	0253	ý
0142	Ž	0158	ž	0174	®	0190	¾	0206	Î	0222	Þ	0238	î	0254	þ
0143	Џ	0159	Ÿ	0175	¯	0191	¿	0207	Ï	0223	ß	0239	ï	0255	ÿ

Russian layout

Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol	Alt code	Symbol
0127	?	0144	ђ	0161	Ў	0178	І	0195	G	0212	F	0229	e	0246	ts
0128	Ђ	0145	‘	0162	ў	0179	і	0196	D	0213	X	0230	and	0247	h
0129	Ѓ	0146	’	0163	Ј	0180	ґ	0197	E	0214	C	0231	h	0248	w
0130	‚	0147	“	0164	¤	0181	µ	0198	AND	0215	H	0232	And	0249	sch
0131	ѓ	0148	”	0165	Ґ	0182	¶	0199	Z	0216	Sh	0233	th	0250	ъ
0132	„	0149	.	0166	¦	0183	·	0200	AND	0217	SCH	0234	To	0251	s
0133	…	0150	-	0167	§	0184	e	0201	Y	0218	Kommersant	0235	l	0252	b
0134	†	0151	—	0168	Yo	0185	№	0202	TO	0219	Y	0236	m	0253	uh
0135	‡	0152	˜	0169		0186	є	0203	L	0220	b	0237	n	0254	Yu
0136	€	0153	™	0170	Є	0187	»	0204	M	0221	E	0238	O	0255	I
0137	‰	0154	љ	0171	«	0188	ј	0205	N	0222	YU	0239	P
0138	Љ	0155	›	0172	¬-	0189	Ѕ	0206	ABOUT	0223	I	0240	R
0139	‹	0156	њ	0173	---	0190	ѕ	0207	P	0224	A	0241	With
0140	Њ	0157	ќ	0174	®	0191	ї	0208	R	0225	b	0242	T
0141	Ќ	0158	ћ	0175	Ї	0192	A	0209	WITH	0226	V	0243	at
0142	Ћ	0159	џ	0176	°	0193	B	0210	T	0227	G	0244	f
0143	Џ	0160	<неразры prominent space>	0177	±	0194	IN	0211	U	0228	d	0245	X

Everyone can type text today. Even the most staunch opponents of new technologies know how to type symbols on the keyboard ( but they don't do it out of principle). After all, all that is required is to find the key with the desired letter or punctuation mark and press it with your finger:

But sometimes situations arise when the desired character is simply not on the keyboard. For example, a person writes a text about the temperature at the South Pole, but there is no symbol indicating degrees. In this case, not only a beginner, but also a fairly experienced user may become confused ( or the one who considers himself to be one).

But there is certainly a way out of this situation. When the characters on the keyboard do not meet the requirements, you must use other input methods. Some of them will be discussed in this article.

Why isn't everything on the keyboard?

If you look just below the monitor screen, you can see different symbols on the keyboard, which, however, look very familiar. They are used, oddly enough, for printing, and humanity has been interested in this activity for quite a long time.

Back in 1868, the typewriter was introduced to the world ( although they tried to do this a century earlier), the letters on it were arranged in alphabetical order, and it took people 22 years to eliminate this inconvenience. In turn, in 1890, the QWERTY layout appeared, which migrated to modern keyboards.

Thus, the composition and arrangement of the main symbols were developed over the years, and over time, humanity did not come up with something radically new in this regard, but only improved the old.

Why do keyboards remain the same, and there is no one who wants to make money on the newness? You need to understand that large companies producing equipment must focus on a wide audience, so the symbols and signs on the keyboard are designed for the most general needs. To understand manufacturers, it is necessary to define the categories of people who use computers.

• Regular users. They need to go online, check their email and, in some cases, write small texts ( messages, announcements):

These people do not require additional characters on the keyboard, and even those that are there are too many.

• Programmers:

Keyboard symbols include the basic reserved constructs of many programming languages ​​( &, |, #, (), etc.). Such popular and most widely used languages ​​as C, C++, Lisp, Java have an established syntax, which was initially partially adjusted to the symbols available on the keyboard. Therefore, if the standard layout changes significantly now, this will lead to significant inconvenience for programmers, and no one wants this.

• Office workers. These comrades in most cases operate with numbers, so their needs closely intersect with those of programmers:

Mathematical operations, percentage and dollar signs are faithful companions of each report.

Needless to say, today everyone uses a computer, everywhere. In many cases, people need to enter characters that are not available on the keyboard. These could be some kind of scientific designations or simply more suitable means of display in a particular situation.

In order to accommodate all the known symbols, thousands of keyboards would be needed, but the keys have a remarkable property: they can be pressed several at a time. However, more on this later.

Special characters

We are accustomed to the fact that a character is something visual, but when formatting text it is often necessary to make indentations and line breaks, which are ignored by the browser when displayed. In this case, special characters are used. They are not on the keyboard, but in the html code you can, for example, write   , which will mean non-breaking space.

Let's imagine another situation: you are writing an article about Internet technologies and want to give examples of tags html language. But here’s the problem: you know how to put the symbols ( not small anymore), but the browser treats the tags as tags and renders nothing. In this case, special symbols come to the rescue again.

Sometimes the authors of articles are faced with a complicated problem: how to write characters on the keyboard if there are none on it. The weak give up and use tricks, calling into words what they could not type. Initiates turn to special symbols and find what they need:

For example, 7 is the Jewish star; The symbol is not on the keyboard, but it is very useful when writing religious texts.

Character codes

The codes for special characters in the html language have already been discussed above, but there are other ways to show what is not shown on the keyboard keys.

First of all, we should mention encoding standards: ASCII, Unicode, UTF-8, which allow not only entering characters using the keyboard, but also setting them programmatically, when not the number 300 is displayed on the screen, but a beautiful heart ( if the encoding is set to ASCII).

There is a way to expand existing characters on the keyboard - ALT code. To enter characters this way, you don’t need to go to any special editor:

In order to know how to make symbols on the keyboard ( even those that are not there and that you don’t know about), just have a sign in front of your eyes and, holding down the alt key, enter a sequence of numbers.

How to enter something that is not on the keyboard?

For those who do not know how to make symbols on the keyboard that are not displayed on the keys, putting together everything mentioned above, there are several ways.

Many of us have repeatedly needed to insert into a document or message a character that is not on the keyboard. For an experienced user this is a trivial task, but for a beginner, despite its simplicity, it can baffle. After all, upon closer examination, it turns out that there are not so many keys on the keyboard, and there are many more symbols - these are not only numbers, letters and punctuation or mathematics. In addition to them, there are also icons of national currencies, various physical quantities, etc. And from time to time the task arises of introducing any of them into the text of the document.

In Windows, this problem was solved quite simply by assigning each character a unique code, which can be entered using the key Alt.

To first familiarize yourself with the list of all existing characters and their codes, we need to open the Symbol Table. To do this, go to the menu Start => All Programs => Accessories => System Tools => Character Table.

A small window will open with a table showing all the characters in Unicode.

Unicode is an international character encoding standard that allows characters to be represented in almost all written languages. Initially, it was created specifically to bring a large number of different systems to a single form, and, accordingly, eliminate all errors associated with encodings.

Select the font for which we need to find a symbol from the drop-down list at the top. Further, if we are working with a document in Russian, then it is best for us to bring the table to a form convenient for us. To do this, put a tick next to the option “ Additional viewing options", after which we will open the drop-down menu in the fields that open and select the character set we need - Windows: Cyrillic.

There are quite a lot of symbols in the table, and sometimes finding the right one can be difficult. You can make your search process much easier by filtering characters into groups. To do this, we will use the field Grouping. A small window will appear with a list of different sections. For example, we need a euro icon. The euro is a monetary unit, so in groups we simply select Currency.

Once the desired symbol is selected, its code appears in the lower right corner. In our example for the euro icon ( € ) this will be the code Alt+0136. So we press the key Alt and without releasing it, turn on the additional numeric keypad (on the right) with the key NumLock(sometimes it turns on automatically when Windows starts) and type on it 0136 . Then we release Alt. And the symbol appears in the place in the document where the cursor was.

Sometimes there is no need to turn on the additional numeric keypad, and the code can be entered on the main one, located above the letters. But this does not always work and not on all systems. Try it on yours. In addition, on most laptops there are no additional numbers at all. Sometimes they are enabled using special combinations, but more often they are not. In all these cases, entering characters can be done a little differently. Everything in the same symbol table, after selecting the one you need, press the button Choose, and then - Copy. The character we need is copied to the Windows clipboard. Place the cursor in the place in the document where we want to insert the symbol and press the combination Ctrl+V(or select the command from the menu Insert). That's it, the right symbol in the right place.

Of course, many will find the operation labor-intensive, but if you are proficient, then entering special characters will not be difficult for you. In addition, these operations are usually not required very often. Yes, and you can make your task a little easier - for example, by compiling and printing a small table with the character codes that you use most often. For example:

Symbol	Code	Description
§	Alt+0167	Paragraph
®	Alt+0174	Registered Trademark
	Alt+0169	Copyright sign
«	Alt+0171	Left double corner bracket (herringbone)
»	Alt+0187	Right double corner bracket (herringbone)
—	Alt+0151	Dash
€	Alt+0136	Euro sign

You can also create a shortcut to the Symbol Table and place it on the Desktop or Panel quick launch, or pin it to the Start menu so that it is always at hand.

If you need to enter such symbols quite often, then it is best to bother searching special program for these purposes. You can find a sufficient number of them on Google, however, almost all of them are paid, although they are usually not too expensive.

It should also be taken into account that in some text editors Not all special characters are entered correctly.

There are many more existing symbols - and these are not only letters, numbers, mathematical and punctuation signs, and many others - than there are keys on a computer keyboard. Microsoft employees who developed Windows system, solved this problem by assigning a unique code to each character, which is entered using the Alt key.

To view the list of all existing symbols, go to the Start menu and then:
All programs -> Accessories -> Utilities -> Symbol table
As a result, a table of characters in Unicode will open.

For reference: Unicode is a character encoding standard that allows you to represent the characters of almost all written languages. Unicode was originally created to eliminate encoding errors.

To convert the table into an encoding convenient for you, you need to check the box next to “Additional viewing options” and use the drop-down menu to select necessary set characters (“Cyrillic” for Russian).

Alt codes
For recruitment Alt code you need to hold down the Alt key and press the indicated code numbers one by one, then release the Alt key. The symbol will appear after releasing the key.

HTML mnemonics
In addition to Alt codes, the table contains HTML mnemonics.

A mnemonic is a coded representation of a character in HTML that begins with an ampersand "&" and ends with a semicolon ";".

Accordingly, in HTML, for example, the “greater than” symbol can be written in two ways:
> - like a regular symbol
> - as a mnemonic code;

A symbol can only be displayed if it is presented in the font being used. Otherwise, you will see a rectangle, a question mark, and something else indicating that there is no image for the specified symbol.
Now this problem successfully solved thanks to plug-in fonts.

Keyboard special characters table

Symbol	Alt+	Mnemonics	Name/purpose
Most useful symbols
-	151	—	em dash(m-dash), for Russian the only correct spelling
«	171	«	opening quote "herringbone"
»	187	»	closing quotation mark "herringbone"
	160		non-breaking space (words separated by such a space are always on the same line)
…	133	…	ellipses
„	132	„	double bottom quote
“	147	“	double left quote
”	148	”	double right quote
‚	130	‚	single lower quote
‘	145	‘	single left quote
’	146	’	single right quote
©	169		copyright (copyright protection symbol)
™	153	™	trademark
®	174	®	security sign trademark
–	150	-	mid dash (n-dash)
"	34	"	programmer double quote
<	60	<	less sign
>	62	>	"more" sign
‘	39	"	regular single quote(located to the left of the Enter key)
&	38	&	ampersand
°	248 (176)	°	degree sign
№	252 (185)	№	number sign (Shift+3 in Russian layout)
√	251	√	Square root
·	250 (183)	·	interpunct (point for dividing words in Latin writing)
¤	253 (164)	¤	currency sign
€	0136 (0128)	€	Euro symbol
¥	165	¥	yen symbol
¢	162	¢	cent symbol (American)
£	163	£	pound symbol (British)
×	215	×	multiplication sign
÷	247	÷	division sign
−	-	−	minus sign (correct, not the same as minus hyphen)
+	43	+	plus sign
±	177	±	plus or minus
¹	185	¹	superscript "1"
²	178	²	superscript "2"
³	179	³	superscript "3"
‰	137	‰	ppm
	173	-	"soft" transfer (means that in this place the browser, at its discretion, can move part of the word)
Arrows
	16		right
◄	17	◄	left
▲	30	▲	up
▼	31	▼	down
	18	↕	up down
↔	29	↔	left-right
	24		up
↓	25	↓	down
→	26	→	right
←	27	←	left
¶	20(182)	¶	paragraph symbol
§	21(167)	§	paragraph symbol
`	96	-	typewritten back apostrophe (to the left of key 1, above Tab)
Other symbols
	1	-	smiley
☻	2	-	inverted smiley
	3		hearts (heart)
♦	4	♦	diamonds
♣	5	♣	clubs (crosses)
♠	6	♠	peaks
	7(149)	.	bullet for list
♂	11	-	designation of the male gender (symbol of the planet Mars)
♀	12	-	designation of the female gender (mirror of Venus)
ƒ	131	ƒ	Latin f with a tail
†	134	†	cross
‡	135	‡	double cross
¡	161	¡	flipped over Exclamation point
¦	166	¦	"ragged" vertical line
¬	172	¬	negative sign
µ	181	µ	symbol "micro" (used in the SI system to indicate the corresponding prefix)
Greek lowercase letters
α	-	α	alpha
β	-	β	beta
γ	-	γ	gamma
δ	-	δ	delta
ε	-	ε	epsilon
ζ	-	ζ	zeta
η	-	η	this
θ	-	θ	theta
ι	-	ι	iota
κ	-	κ	kappa
λ	-	λ	lambda
μ	-	μ	mu
ν	-	ν	nude
ξ	-	ξ	xi
ο	-	ο	omicron
π	-	π	pi
ρ	-	ρ	ro
σ	-	σ	sigma
τ	-	τ	tau
υ	-	υ	upsilon
φ	-	φ	fi
χ	-	χ	hee
ψ	-	ψ	psi
ω	-	ω	omega
Greek capital letters
Α	-	Α	alpha
Β	-	Β	beta
Γ	-	Γ	gamma
Δ	-	Δ	delta
Ε	-	Ε	epsilon
Ζ	-	Ζ	zeta
Η	-	Η	this
Θ	-	Θ	theta
Ι	-	Ι	iota
Κ	-	Κ	kappa
Λ	-	Λ	lambda
Μ	-	Μ	mu
Ν	-	Ν	nude
Ξ	-	Ξ	xi
Ο	-	Ο	omicron
Π	-	Π	pi
Ρ	-	Ρ	ro
Σ	-	Σ	sigma
Τ	-	Τ	tau
Υ	-	Υ	upsilon
Φ	-	Φ	fi
Χ	-	Χ	hee
Ψ	-	Ψ	psi
Ω	-	Ω	omega
Fractions
½	189	½	fraction "one half"
⅓	-	⅓	fraction "one third"
¼	188	¼	fraction "one quarter"
⅕		⅕	fraction "one fifth"
⅙	-	⅙	fraction "one sixth"
⅛	-	⅛	fraction "one eighth"
⅔	-	⅔	fraction "two thirds"
⅖	-	⅖	fraction "two fifths"
¾	190	¾	fraction "three-quarters"
⅗	-	⅗	fraction "three fifths"
⅜	-	⅜	fraction "three-eighths"
⅘	-	⅘	fraction "four fifths"
⅚	-	⅚	fraction "five-sixths"
⅝	-	⅝	fraction "five-eighths"
⅞	-	⅞	fraction "seven-eighths"