# character map in mac?



## carine (Feb 18, 2005)

Hi ... I've been using mac for only 2 days...

Does mac have a 'character map' like windows? Or is there something similar to character map where I can view all the font designs?  

Regarding fonts again... hmm when I go to the font folder and double click on a font, the font doesn't open unless I choose an application to open with. What application should I use to open and view the font?

Thanks a lot...

- CA


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## Giaguara (Feb 18, 2005)

Hi Carine,

Fonts can be opened with Font Book - application. If you have 10.3, it is located in your Applications folder.

You can see the charachter map on the menu bar. Go to System Preferences, in there to International > Input Menu. Select in that all the layouts you want to use (e.g. US, Italian PRO), and select "Charachter Palette". Then you will see a small flag on your menubar to indicate your keyboard layout; scrolling down from the flag you will see charachter palette, and if you clikc on that it opens a new window. 

Furthermore, many letters like ãñäõéáóèàò etc have a fast shortcut to be done, alt-something, so alt-u and then the letter for üäö etc, alt-n for ñõã, alt-e for éáó, alt-` for àèò and so on.


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## carine (Feb 18, 2005)

oh yes!! I managed to find what I wanted!! Thanks a lot!!! =)


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## Giaguara (Feb 18, 2005)

Np. Which letters were you missing by the way?


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## carine (Feb 18, 2005)

I only wanted to get the 'character palette' so that I could view the different fonts esp. those graphic symbols... =)


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## ziess (Feb 18, 2005)

Alternatively, in the Finder go to Edit/Special Charchters.
Brings up a menu that's more screen-friendly than Fontbook.


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## nixgeek (Feb 18, 2005)

I have to say that character maps on the Mac are so much easier than using it on Windows thanks to the way Apple uses the Option key.  It's so much nicer to use that and a letter to get the character you want.  I hate how it is on Windows and even on Gnome and KDE.  It sucks having to go into another program just to copy and paste on little character.  And no, memorizing the Alt+ASCII# doesn't make it easier.  Option-N and "N" is much easier to get that little tilde over the N.   One more reason to use a Mac.

OK...rant's over


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## darkhighway (Mar 26, 2005)

I'm actually used to memorizing the alt+ASCII number. I just switched from PC to Mac a couple of weeks ago. I still use my PC.....as a file server..lol.

I found the Character Palette in both the finder and fontbook. I just cannot figure out how to configure the hotkeys for the special characters


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## nixgeek (Mar 26, 2005)

Open up TextEdit and hold down the Option key while hitting a letter.  In cases like the N key, hold down Option, hit N, let got of the option key and hit N again.  That should give you the N with a tilde over it.  I know it was this way in Mac OS Classic..I dont see why it wouldn't be the same in X.


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## Esquilinho (Aug 4, 2005)

Is there a way I can type "e" and "u" with tildes, without resorting to the character palette? 
I have to type a text with hundreds of them, and it will be kind of uncomfortable to have to use the palette all the time...


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## kainjow (Aug 4, 2005)

Tildes are the ~ symbol. What languages use e's an u's with a ~? [Option-N N] gives you the ñ symbol. Doing that with E or U doesn't produce that symbol.

Do you mean umlauts? You can do [Option-U E] and [Option-U U]...


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## Esquilinho (Aug 4, 2005)

No, it's not umlauts. 
It's actually old Portuguese... I'm transcripting some old Portuguese texts and it has lots of "e" and "u" with "~"... The only thing I can como up with to make it easier is to use a character that is never used elsewhere in the text (like a @ for the e's and a % for the u's) and then do a find and replace all by the proper characters...


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## nixgeek (Aug 4, 2005)

Have you tried doing the option-n and then the letter you need to have that tilde above it?


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## mindbend (Aug 4, 2005)

I cannot find a way using Apple's built-in tools to show me the keyboard shortcut for this character:    ?

I had to use the "insert" option from the character palette.

You'd think, given how thorough the character palete actually is, that Apple would have included keyboard shortcuts somewhere in there, but I can't find the list.

Here are some other options maybe:

Font Safari (not actually available yet it seems)
http://dreystone.com/products.php?app=FTSF

PopChar
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14804
PopChar shows you the keyboard shortcut for any given font character, but it seems incomplete. Many characters don't have a shortcut. Is this because there simply is not shortcut, or is PopChar incomplete? I don't know.

Apple's Built-In "Keyboard Viewer" shows you various keyboard shortcuts for alternate fonts, but it's very limited.

Here's another work around:

Use a macro utility like this:
TypeIt4Me
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12930

You install this app and then tell it what series of keys you want to type certain things. So you could tell it that every time you type "eee" it should instead type ?. It's very cool. Very handy for other stuff, like common names and phrases you might use a lot. Like my company name is Mindbend, Inc. so I when I type mmm it spits out Mindbend, Inc. instead. Way cool.



But in the end, I would still like to know if there's a built-in shortcut for this character: ?  (and all the others for that matter), cuz I can't find it.


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## Esquilinho (Aug 5, 2005)

I downloaded TypeIt4Me. It seems ok, but it doesn't work in my case. I think it doesn't recognize the character I want and just replaces the sequence with a "?"

But maybe I'll try something else: I don't have Word on my mac, only on the PC (brrrr!) but I guess I can try the autocorrect function to do the same as TypeIt4Me...


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## biO_sPheRe (Sep 29, 2008)

GUYS.....please tell me how to do apple mac logo.......i play wc3 (warcraft3) and people always use it......im gettn *JELOUS NOW* PLS reply quick


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## VirtualTracy (Sep 29, 2008)

Ok then bi0_sPheRe ... just this once, ok?

_Shift + Option + K_

Now I keel yooooooooooooooooo!


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## Pathanhht (Aug 27, 2013)

Inserting a special character into a document made me ever headache in Mac. I find it quite easy now. Just do as follows.

Finder &#8594; Edit &#8594; Special Character 

then choose the character you want and add it to favorite. 
When you want to use it just again just go to favorite menu to copy and paste to the document.

I wish you all can find it easy like me.

If anyone has a quicker way to access special characters, please let me know. Thank you in advance.

BR and Wishes to all


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## Giaguara (Sep 4, 2013)

For accented letters, you can also use these shortcodes. 
(A few are mapped differently in the non-US keyboards)

http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/accents/codemac.html


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## Satcomer (Sep 5, 2013)

Pathanhht said:


> If anyone has a quicker way to access special characters, please let me know. Thank you in advance.
> 
> BR and Wishes to all



What I do is on a new Mac is go to System Preferences->Language & Text, Input Sources mini-tab and put a check mark in the 'Keyboard & Character Viewer' & your Country's Flag. Then your county's flag will appear in the finder menu bar and when you click on it the drop-down will give you access to the Keyboard Viewer or the Character viewer.


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