What Are Special Characters or Symbols in Word?
Special characters are symbols that do not appear on a keyboard. What are considered special characters and symbols will vary depending on your country, your installed language in Word and your keyboard. These symbols and special characters can include fractions, trademark and copyright symbols, foreign country currency symbols and many others. Word does differentiate between symbols and special characters, but you shouldn’t have difficulty locating and inserting either in your documents.
Inserting a Symbol or Special Character
To insert a symbol, follow these steps: Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019 Once your symbol is inserted, click the Close button. Word 2003 Once your symbol is inserted, click the Close button.
What If I Don’t See My Symbol?
If you don’t see what you’re looking for among the symbols in the dialog box, click on the Special Characters tab and look there. If the symbol you’re looking for is not under the Special Characters tab, it may be part of a specific font set. Click back over to the Symbols tab and click the dropdown list labeled Font. You may have to look through several font sets if you’re not sure in which set your symbol may be included.
Assigning Shortcut Keys to Symbols and Special Characters
If you use a particular symbol often, you may want to consider assigning a shortcut key to the symbol. Doing so will allow you to insert the symbol into your documents with a quick keystroke combination, bypassing the menus and dialog boxes. To assign a keystroke to a symbol or special character, first, open the Symbol dialog box as described in the steps under inserting symbols above. Now you can insert your symbol by simply clicking the assigned keystroke.
