Windows 7 shows all the characters that are included in the font that the user selects. These can be punctuation marks, numbers, letters and symbols that are not on the keyboard. Any symbol or several symbols can be copied and pasted into those programs, editors, applications that are “friendly” with these symbols, that is, support their display.

Let's look in the recesses of the Windows 7 operating system for a mysterious stranger with the prosaic name “Symbol Table”. We use 2 options for this:

• through the automatic Search system and
• using the “All programs” option, manual search.

In fact, it is enough to use one option, choosing the most suitable one for yourself.

Looking for the Character Table using Windows 7 Search

To do this, click on the big Start button. The button menu will open:

Rice. 1 Search Windows 7 Symbol Table

Here, in the bottom line with the inscription “Find programs and files,” click the mouse (number 1 in Fig. 1), the indicated inscription will disappear. Then we type “character table” on the keyboard without quotes, as shown below in Fig. 2, number 1.

Rice. 2 Enter the search query “symbol table” and immediately see the search result

The Windows 7 operating system itself will find and at the top of the Start menu will display the found “Symbol Table” program (number 2 in Fig. 2). All that remains is to use the search result, namely, click on the found program.

Looking for the Symbol Table in Windows 7 Utilities

The second way to find the Windows 7 symbol table is to follow the following labyrinth of routes.

• Click on the Start button.

• The Start button menu will open, in which we click on the “All programs” option (number 2 in Fig. 1).

• Among the list of programs we find “Standard”. To do this, you may have to move the slider (number 3 in Fig. 3) to move through the programs.

• Among the “Standard” we find “Service”.

• Click on the “Service” option (number 1 in Fig. 3).

• Next, click on the “Symbol Table” option (number 2 in Fig. 3) to launch it.

Rice. 3 Found the Symbol Table along the way
“Start” – “All Programs” – “Accessories” – “Utility” programs Windows 7

In my opinion, the first method of searching the Symbol Table is faster. But the second method allows you to look into the “holy of holies” - Windows 7 Utilities, thereby seeing what tools Microsoft programmers provide us.

How to transfer a symbol from a Table to an Application

Figure 4 shows step by step how you can transfer a selected character, which most likely is not on the keyboard, from the Windows 7 Character Table to a program, application, or editor. The main thing is that the program, application or editor, that is, the place where we transfer the symbol, supports the display of such symbols. Because they may have mutual misunderstanding - software incompatibility.

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Let's imagine a trivial situation: you need to enter a special character into some text, but there is no key on the keyboard with such a character.

What should I do?

If you are working in a text editor , then there are no problems:

– select menu Insert -> Symbol...;

– in the dialog box that opens Symbol select the desired symbol;

– press the key Insert(you can insert by double-clicking the left button on the selected symbol).

And if you work in a “non-advanced” text editor, for example, in Notepad(by the way, the program Notebook It is very convenient to use as a notepad - for current notes and notes. Since it “weighs” less than Word, then it loads faster and works in it faster)?

What should I do?

There is a way out, and it is always at hand!

– press and hold the key Alt;

– on the additional numeric keypad (the numeric pad is located on the right side of the keyboard), enter the character code;

– when you release the key Alt, the desired character will be inserted into the text.

Note. There must be a numeric keypad (if it is not, turn it on by pressing the key NumLock).

Some character codes are listed below:

0123 (or 123 )	{
0124 (or 124 )	|
0125 (or 125 )	}
0126 (or 126 )	~
0130	‚ bottom single quote
0132	„ Opening tab
0133	… Ellipsis
0134	† Cross ( dagger)
0135	‡ Double cross ( double dagger)
0136	€ Euro symbol
0137	‰ ppm symbol
0139	‹ Left "corner"
0143	Џ
0145	‘ Top single quote (inverted apostrophe)
0146	’ Apostrophe
0147	“ Closing tab
0148	” English closing foot
0149	"bold" dot in the center
0150	– En dash (minus)
0151	- Dash
0153	™ trade mark symbol
0155	› Right "corner"
0159	џ
0166	¦
0167	§ Paragraph
0169	© Copyright symbol
0171	« Opening herringbone
0172	¬
0174	®
0176	° Degree symbol
0177	±
0181	µ
0182	¶
0183	Center point
0185	№
0187	» Closing herringbone

Knowing these codes (or at least having a printed piece of paper with these codes “at hand”) allows you to increase the speed of working on the keyboard, even in Word"e.

Often, when working with text, you need to insert a character that is not in the fonts installed on your computer. For example, a user decided to reproduce a pre-revolutionary text with yatami and izhitsa, but he doesn’t even have them (some try to get out of this situation by using the hard sign “Ъ”, but this is completely different!) (Pre-revolutionary and Church Slavonic symbols are offered in font Palatino Linotype. Church Slavonic fonts are offered at http://www.irmologion.ru/fonts.html or http://www.typikon.ru/fonts.htm Fonts of the peoples of Russia are offered at http://www. .peoples.org.ru/font.html). It is very simple to get out of this situation - you need to draw such a symbol and use it in the text. The only limitation for such symbols is that they can only be inserted using Symbol tables located in the section Standard from the Windows program menu.

To create personal symbols, you need to open the personal symbol editor. It opens like this:

1. Open Start→ All applications.

2. Place the mouse on the partition Service - Windows.

3. Run the command Execute.

4. Type in the list box Open team Eudcedit . The case of the letters is completely unimportant. Click on the button OK.

Another way: Start →All applications →Standard - Windows→ Private Character Editor. After this it opens Editor of personal symbols (Fig. 90).

After opening the Personal Symbol Editor, you will be prompted to define the code for this symbol. Select any cell and click on the button OK. In this editor we can create our own symbols. You don't have to create symbols from scratch; you can use any existing symbol as a base. To do this, run the command Edit→ Copy sign. After this a window opens Copying a sign. If the proposed font does not contain the required source character, then click the button Font and select a different font. After the source symbol is found, select it, click on the button OK.

Drawing a personal symbol occurs without any particular difficulties, since its scale is very large and the surface of the sheet itself is lined with grid cells, which creates additional convenience for accurate drawing (Fig. 91). Each cell is a pixel.

The available tools are Pencil, Brush, various geometric shapes - Straight line, filled and unfilled Rectangles, filled and unfilled Ellipse. The Rectangular Selection and Free Shape Selection tools are used for selection. The Eraser tool is used to remove erroneously filled cells. The Pencil and the Brush differ from each other only in that the Pencil draws a line in 1 cell, and the Brush in 2. Coloring the symbol is only allowed in black. Once you insert this symbol into your document, you can change its color in any way you know. For example, in any version of Microsoft Word there is a special list of colors in which you can color characters.

After creating a symbol, you need to remember it. To do this you need to run the commands Edit→ Save sign or Edit→ Save sign as. Team Save sign saves the private symbol under the same code. Team Save sign as allows you to save it under a different code. The editor has the ability to view the created personal symbol and compare it with some other symbol. To do this, run the command Window→ Sample. After viewing, run the command Window → Close sample.

After creating a personal symbol, you need to associate it with some font or all fonts. The last option is preferable, as it is logically clearer and simpler. To do this you need to run the command File→ Font connections. In the dialog box that opens Font connections option Link to all fonts offered by default. Click on the button OK.

First of all, let's understand the term "Association with all fonts". This does not mean that this character will be accessible from any font. This character will be available from the Character Table in a font called All fonts (personal characters). Since all fonts in the font list have English names, according to the sorting rules, Russian characters are sorted after English ones. Therefore, this font will be the last or one of the last if fonts with Russian names suddenly appear.

After establishing a connection with the fonts, you must close all applications and restart the computer. On our computer this font ( All fonts (personal characters)) became available for the very first time only after rebooting the computer. Inserting a personal symbol is carried out only from the symbol table, which is opened with the command All programs→ Standard→ symbol table. The procedure for selecting a symbol from this table and inserting it into the document is the same as for any regular symbol.

After creating a personal symbol, the user is obviously going to use that symbol in their documents. If he intends to use such documents only for internal use, that is, up to and including the printing stage, then in this case nothing additional needs to be done. But if the user is going to transfer files with personal symbols to other organizations or other people, then he must, along with the first transfer of such a document with a personal symbol, transfer to the customer the font itself with the personal symbol (or symbols). If this is not done, then these personal characters simply will not be reflected in the text when the customer tries to read your document on his computer.

For help with the Personal Character Editor, select a command in the editor Reference→ Calling help. Unfortunately, the certificate omits some minor nuances, about which for some reason nothing is said.

To create professional fonts, as well as their maintenance, specialized programs have been created. For a detailed description of such programs, see V. N. Shitov. The latest directory of useful computer programs. M.: House of Slavic Books, 2009.

As you already know, you can enter additional characters from the Unicode standard that are not available on the keyboard. Almost all applications today support special characters that can be entered using the ALT key and a special combination of numbers on the numeric keypad. Using the correct sequence of ALT keys and numbers, you can enter a trademark symbol, a degree symbol, a copyright symbol, various currency symbols, and so on. Here is a list of the most commonly used characters and their ALT codes.
This list can be useful when you need to enter such characters frequently. If you remember the input sequence, you can quickly get the desired character without switching to the Character Map application. This will save your time and will not interrupt your workflow. Of course, such a large list is not easy to remember, so you may want to bookmark this page and you can refer to the list of special characters later.

Symbol	Keyboard shortcut
backspace†	Alt 8
tab†	Alt 9
line break†	Alt 10
¤	Alt 15
¶	Alt 20
§	Alt 21
†	Alt 22
†	Alt 32
!	Alt 33
"	Alt 34
#	Alt 35
$	Alt 36
%	Alt 37
&	Alt 38
"	Alt 39
(	Alt 40
)	Alt 41
*	Alt 42
+	Alt 43
,	Alt 44
-	Alt 45
.	Alt 46
/	Alt 47
0	Alt 48
1	Alt 49
2	Alt 50
3	Alt 51
4	Alt 52
5	Alt 53
6	Alt 54
7	Alt 55
8	Alt 56
9	Alt 57
:	Alt 58
;	Alt 59
<	Alt 60
=	Alt 61
>	Alt 62
?	Alt 63
@	Alt 64
A	Alt 65
B	Alt 66
C	Alt 67
D	Alt 68
E	Alt 69
F	Alt 70
G	Alt 71
H	Alt 72
I	Alt 73
J	Alt 74
K	Alt 75
L	Alt 76
M	Alt 77
N	Alt 78
O	Alt 79
P	Alt 80
Q	Alt 81
R	Alt 82
S	Alt 83
T	Alt 84
U	Alt 85
V	Alt 86
W	Alt 87
X	Alt 88
Y	Alt 89
Z	Alt 90
[	Alt 91
\	Alt 92
]	Alt 93
^	Alt 94
_	Alt 95
`	Alt 96
a	Alt 97
b	Alt 98
c	Alt 99
d	Alt 100
e	Alt 101
f	Alt 102
g	Alt 103
h	Alt 104
i	Alt 105
j	Alt 106
k	Alt 107
l	Alt 108
m	Alt 109
n	Alt 110
o	Alt 111
p	Alt 112
q	Alt 113
r	Alt 114
s	Alt 115
t	Alt 116
u	Alt 117
v	Alt 118
w	Alt 119
x	Alt 120
y	Alt 121
z	Alt 122
{	Alt 123
|	Alt 124
}	Alt 125
~	Alt 126
	Alt 127
Ç	Alt 128
ü	Alt 129
é	Alt 130
â	Alt 131
ä	Alt 132
à	Alt 133
å	Alt 134
ç	Alt 135
ê	Alt 136
ë	Alt 137
è	Alt 138
ï	Alt 139
î	Alt 140
ì	Alt 141
æ	Alt 145
Æ	Alt 146
ô	Alt 147
ö	Alt 148
ò	Alt 149
û	Alt 150
ù	Alt 151
ÿ	Alt 152
¢	Alt 155
£	Alt 156
¥	Alt 157
P	Alt 158
ƒ	Alt 159
á	Alt 160
í	Alt 161
ó	Alt 162
ú	Alt 163
ñ	Alt 164
Ñ	Alt 165
¿	Alt 168
¬	Alt 170
½	Alt 171
¼	Alt 172
¡	Alt 173
«	Alt 174
»	Alt 175
¦	Alt 179
ß	Alt 225
µ	Alt 230
±	Alt 241
°	Alt 248
	Alt 249
·	Alt 250
²	Alt 253
€	Alt 0128
„	Alt 0132
…	Alt 0133
†	Alt 0134
‡	Alt 0135
ˆ	Alt 0136
‰	Alt 0137
Š	Alt 0138
‹	Alt 0139
Œ	Alt 0140
‘	Alt 0145
’	Alt 0146
“	Alt 0147
”	Alt 0148
–	Alt 0150
-	Alt 0151
˜	Alt 0152
™	Alt 0153
š	Alt 0154
›	Alt 0155
œ	Alt 0156
Ÿ	Alt 0159
¨	Alt 0168
©	Alt 0169
®	Alt 0174
¯	Alt 0175
³	Alt 0179
´	Alt 0180
¸	Alt 0184
¹	Alt 0185
¾	Alt 0190
À	Alt 0192
Á	Alt 0193
Â	Alt 0194
Ã	Alt 0195
Ä	Alt 0196
Å	Alt 0197
È	Alt 0200
É	Alt 0201
Ê	Alt 0202
Ë	Alt 0203
Ì	Alt 0204
Í	Alt 0205
Î	Alt 0206
Ï	Alt 0207
Ð	Alt 0208
Ò	Alt 0210
Ó	Alt 0211
Ô	Alt 0212
Õ	Alt 0213
Ö	Alt 0214
×	Alt 0215
Ø	Alt 0216
Ù	Alt 0217
Ú	Alt 0218
Û	Alt 0219
Ü	Alt 0220
Ý	Alt 0221
Þ	Alt 0222
ã	Alt 0227
ð	Alt 0240
õ	Alt 0245
÷	Alt 0247
ø	Alt 0248
ü	Alt 0252
ý	Alt 0253
þ	Alt 0254

For your convenience, I've also saved the Windows 10 special characters chart into a PDF file that you can download and use as a cheat sheet.

It is worth noting that every modern version of Windows OS has a special application, Character Table or charmap.exe. The application has a convenient user interface to search or view the desired Unicode character. You can open Symbol table using the menu " Start" → "All applications"→ folder " Standard", or by typing in the search charmap.exe. In the Symbol Table, find the desired symbol and copy it to the clipboard, so you can paste it in any application.

Entering special characters - all methods.

You can enter it in several ways - the correct approach depends on what kind of character it is. We will also look at special characters for Word in this article.

System tool for entering arbitrary characters.

The Windows operating system has a special utility program - symbol table, with which you can insert any characters from any fonts into any programs. The program is launched by the Start command > Programs > Standard > Service > Symbol table. Its working window is shown below.

1. In the Font field, select the desired font. Please note that this program is not designed to work with Unicode fonts and therefore different font sets of the same Unicode font are represented in it as if they were different fonts. It turns out that instead of several sets of one Times New Roman font, we have several different fonts: Times New Roman Cyr (Cyrillic), simply Times New Roman (Latin) and Times New Roman CE (font characters for Central European countries).

2. Select the desired symbol in the table and click the Select button - the symbol will appear in the Copy symbols field ( To copy in Word 2007).

3. After that, click the Copy button - the symbol will move to the Windows clipboard.

4. Minimize, without closing, the Symbol Table program window and open your document. Place the cursor where the character is to be inserted and give the paste command CTRL + V or Edit > Paste.

5. If a character from one font is inserted into a character string of another font, it changes the image, although its code remains correct. To restore the correct appearance of a symbol, you need to select it and manually change the font.

Enter characters using the optional numeric keypad.

Working with the program - symbol table, please note that when a symbol is selected in the table, an entry is displayed in the lower right corner of the program window telling you which key this symbol is assigned to. If it is not assigned to any key, then its alternative code can be displayed here: for example, for the “§” sign - the code is ALT + 0167, and for the “°” (degree) symbol - ALT + 0176, etc.

Knowing the alternative code of any character, you can enter any character using the additional keyboard panel, but the Num Lock key must first be turned on. Entering characters using an alternative code is performed as follows:

♦ turn on Num Lock mode and make sure that the corresponding keyboard indicator lights up;
♦ press the ALT key and do not release;
♦ on the additional panel, dial the code numbers sequentially: 0-1-6-7;
♦ release the ALT key - the symbol will be inserted.

As always, if a character from one font is inserted into a string of characters from another font, it changes the image - you need to select it and set the correct font.

Entering special characters using the additional keyboard is much faster than selecting from the Symbol Table program. Therefore, it makes sense to remember the codes of several characters that appear quite often in your documents.

Word and Special Characters.

The program has several special delimiter characters, for example:

♦ long (printing) dash;
♦ en dash;
♦ soft hyphen (used when you need to move to a new line without completing the previous one, but you cannot start a new paragraph with the ENTER key;
♦ spaces of different widths (so-called spacing);
♦ non-breaking space (used between words in cases where they should not appear on different lines).

To insert a special delimiter character, place the cursor at the desired location and give the Insert command > Symbol > Special symbols. Select the desired symbol in the dialog box that opens and click the Insert button.

To avoid opening this window every time you need a special character, look at the key combination assigned to this character. For example, an em dash is entered by simultaneously pressing three keys: CTRL + ALT + the “-” key on the additional numeric keypad of the keyboard. If a symbol doesn't have a key combination assigned to it, create your own using the Key or Shortcut button.

Built-in special character input tool in Word.

In the same Symbol dialog box, on the Symbols tab ( Other characters for Word 2007), you can find a table that lists the characters included in Unicode font sets.

Unicode fonts can contain up to 65,000 characters, as opposed to regular fonts, which have a maximum of 256 characters. The Unicode format is supported by Word from Word 97 to the most recent version available.

To ensure compatibility with other programs that cannot handle Unicode fonts, a font's character set is represented as multiple character sets. To select the desired character, first specify the font, for example Times New Roman, and then the typeface, for example Cyrillic. Click on the desired character and insert it into the text by clicking the Insert button. If the symbol is used very often, assign it to your favorite key combination using the button - Keyboard shortcut .