Then click the accented character you want, or press its corresponding number. Just press and hold the key for the character until the Character Picker appears. It was hard to remember all the combinations, so starting in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple added an easier way, the Character Picker. The trick is to type the keyboard shortcut for the accent, such as Option-U for an umlaut, followed immediately by the character you want underneath. The Option key also helps you type accented characters like the umlauts necessary for a proper rendering of metal band Mötley Crüe’s name. You could even add Shift to get more characters, so Shift-Option– (minus) gives you an em-dash - character. character or Option-G for the copyright © symbol.Many people memorize a few key shortcuts, such as Option-8 for the bullet Historically speaking, the main way you used to access special characters was by holding down a modifier key or two while typing, and that’s still possible. (That said, we’re not going to get into how to type in languages that use different scripts.)Įverything we talk about here applies to OS X 10.11 El Capitan in earlier versions of OS X, menu commands, keyboard shortcuts, and interface controls may differ. So whether you’d like to insert an eggplant ? emoji in a text message, give a price using the euro € symbol, or just use the Command key ⌘ symbol in a keyboard shortcut, it’s good to know how to access all the characters you can type on your Mac. Emoji? Just another symbol character set in Unicode. Those characters come from modern and historic scripts, plus multiple symbol sets. Even that’s just the tip of the iceberg, thanks to Apple’s support of Unicode, which makes it possible to enter more than 128,000 characters. You can press the Shift key to get uppercase letters, and the Option key provides access to numerous other characters. But nothing could be further from the truth. It’s easy to look at your keyboard and assume that its keys represent all the characters you can type. OS X Hidden Treasures: Typing Exotic Characters #1621: Apple Q3 2022 financials, Slack's new free plan restrictions, which OS features do you use?.#1622: OS feature survey results, Continuity Camera webcam preview, OWC miniStack STX.#1623: How to turn off YouTube's PiP, use AirPlay to Mac, and securely erase Mac drives.#1624: Important OS security updates, rescuing QuickTake 150 photos, AirTag alerts while traveling.#1625: Apple's 'Far Out' event, the future of FileMaker, free NMUG membership, Quick Note and tags in Notes, Plex suffers data breach.

How to subscript on mac keyboard