Friday, August 10, 2007

Symbols, Accents, Punctuation, and Foreign Characters

Have you ever needed to type special symbols or characters such as the Registered Trademark Symbol, Copyright Symbol, or perhaps an Umlaut or the Math Division Symbol in a document or web page? Trying to remember the codes that represent them or having to reference some web page that list them can be really impractical. There is a much easier way to access these symbols.

Many people are unaware of a small program that comes with Windows and Linux Distributions that provides them for you along with their associated codes. This same type of program I'm sure comes with OSX as well as other Operating Systems; however, I am unable to verify this due to my lack of access to the numerous number of Operating Systems available.

In Windows 2000/XP/Vista

1. Click the Start Button.
2. Select All Programs.
3. Select Accessories.
4. Select System Tools.
5. Select Character Map.

In Ubuntu Linux (Other Linux Distros may have similar steps)

1. Click Applications from the Task Bar.
2. Select Accessories.
3. Select Character Map.

Whenever you need to make use of a special symbol or foreign character just to mention a couple types; this is a very simple way that is readily available to you. No need to search for the codes for such symbols via the Internet or consult some other reference material.