Windows lets you easily type non-alphanumeric characters in a browser window or within files and applications. These could be less common symbols (like €, ó, á, ₩, ü, ฿), GIFs representing an expression or thought, or even emojis like this wide-eyed smiling face (❁´◡`❁). This tutorial demonstrates how to type special characters in Windows.
Good to know: need to type an em dash? Learn how to do so on any platform.
1. Emoji Keyboard
The most straightforward way to type a special character in Windows is the built-in Emoji Keyboard, also known as Character Picker. It contains a massive selection of emojis, foreign alphabets, symbols, and kaomojis (emojis made with Japanese characters), and is much faster than googling a symbol to copy and paste.
Press Win + . or Win + ;. They both take you to the same menu.
If you need one emoji in particular, use the search option.
If you need a kaomoji or symbol, switch to their dedicated tabs and browse.
When you find the symbol you want, click to insert. The best part of this tool is that you can insert GIFs too. Just type an expression or thought, and you’ll get plenty of GIF choices.
Every category keeps track of your most-used characters. If you have one that you insert frequently, check the “Recent” tab to find it.
Tip: check out how to open Device Manager quickly.
2. Character Map
The Character Map (or Charmap) has a bit of an old-school aesthetic to it and doesn’t include emojis/kaomojis/GIFs, but it has two things going for it:
- allows you to switch between multiple character sets and languages
- lets you select multiple characters at once
You’ll need to search for “Character Map” in the Windows search bar to use Charmap to discover new symbols and characters.
Browse for the symbol you’re looking for.
Note: Charmap isn’t very searchable. It’s inconvenient to scroll through each and every symbol listed under a particular font type. However, you do get a huge number of non-alphanumeric choices.
Click “Select” or double-click to add the desired character to a list of characters to copy.
Every time you add another character to the list, the whole list is sent to your clipboard.
You can also check the “Advanced view” box to get filters and search options.
When you’ve selected everything, use Ctrl + V to insert the characters where you want them.
All Charmap symbols are easily supported on Microsoft applications, such as Word, Excel, and WordPad. However, some of them may not render correctly on a web browser, like Google Chrome.
FYI: check out even more tips for using the Touch keyboard in Windows 11 to its full potential.
3. Touch Keyboard
If you need to type accented letters or a few common symbols, your on-screen keyboard is a good way to access them. You can look for accents in Charmap and Emoji Keyboard too, but it’s much faster with the Touch keyboard.
There are a few ways to launch the Touch keyboard, but the easiest way is just to add it to your taskbar.
Right-click on your taskbar, and select “Show touch keyboard button.” If you do not see this option in Windows 11, select “Taskbar settings” instead.
If “Touch keyboard” under “System tray icons” is set to “Never,” change it to “Always.”
Click the Touch keyboard icon on your system tray, and its default keyboard layout will show. If you click on any of these letters, it will automatically copy to the clipboard, and you can paste it elsewhere.
To type an accented letter, long-press the letter you want, then mouse over the correct accent.
To type numerical symbols, use the &123 button on the bottom left. If you want to see more symbols, press the left and right slider buttons.
You can also long-press any numerical symbol to view more options. For example, if you long-press a number, it shows the options for subscripts and fractions. If you long-press the “$” symbol, it shows more currency symbols.
For emojis, click the heart-like icon on the top of the Touch keyboard, which will lead to many emojis, kaomojis, and a search button for GIFs. These are the same symbols as Character Picker.
4. Alt Key Codes
Power users with numeric keypads and a good memory may prefer using the Alt + [number code] trick. This only works if you have a keyboard with a separate number pad and won’t work with numbers along the top row.
If your laptop has a Num Lock key, press it once to activate the number pad section on your keyboard.
Press and hold Alt, type in the code on your number pad that corresponds to the symbol you want, then release Alt.
For example, Alt + 1 is a smiley face (☺), Alt + 228 is a sigma (Σ), and Alt + 0128 is the euro symbol (€).
There are many codes, so you’ll have to look them up at least a few times before you memorize the ones you use most frequently. Alt-Codes has a comprehensive library, but we prefer AltCodeUnicode, as it has a text description of each symbol, making it much more searchable.
If you have a number pad and tend to often type the same symbols, memorizing the Alt codes is the best way to go. But if you have to stop and look up codes all the time, it’s best to use another method.
Tip: looking to improve your typing speed or accuracy? Check out the best typing games and apps to help you improve.
5. Install a Physical Keyboard in Another Language
If you’re a bilingual/multilingual speaker, you don’t have to contend with the default keyboard layout. It’s easy to install additional physical keyboards in other languages to type their frequently used accent marks. They can be connected to Windows through USB or Bluetooth.
For instance, if you’re fluent in French, a French language keyboard makes it easier to type letters with French accent marks, such as ç, é, â, ô, ò, and ù.
If you have a USB keyboard, connect it to your laptop’s USB port. For those using a Bluetooth keyboard, follow this guide that shows how to pair a Bluetooth device in Windows.
Click the language bar on the system tray, which should say “English US” or something similar. This opens all your current keyboard layouts.
Select “More keyboard settings.”
Click a three-dot icon next to your language pack, and select “Language options.”
Select “Add a keyboard” next to “Installed keyboards.”
From the flyout options, choose a keyboard style for another language.
Note: check out this handy guide to learn other methods of adding new language keyboards to Windows.
6. Google Search for Special Characters and Emojis
In the age of high-speed Internet, you can also look for your favorite emoji or symbols through a simple Google search. You just need to copy-paste them from wherever you find them. Emojipedia is a useful website with a massive collection of the latest emojis.
There are plenty of other workarounds to type special characters in Windows, though they’re a bit beyond the scope of this article. Creating an AutoHotKey script for your frequently used characters is one such workaround. You can also set the program you’re typing in to automatically replace certain letter combinations with the symbol you want. Apart from Windows, it’s also possible to type a variety of emojis on a Chromebook keyboard.
Image credit: Unsplash. All screenshots by Sayak Boral.
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