Hi Lindsay,
I have always been interested in the topic of special characters on
account of my passion for foreign languages. I am going to paste some
tips from Mac users on this list wiht the hope that it will help you.
See below. I want to apologise for not ecknowledging the individual
contributions to what I'm pasting below but I do not keep these
personal details on file. Our list has got several members who are
absolutely expert in a number of languages and they will I am sure
happy to help further.
Please remember that mac operating system has many keyboard layouts
available which you can make active and then switch to them by using
shortcut keys. This might be your answer. Forgive me if I am not
understanding your needs here.
With best wishes, Simon
I'm starting a new thread, but this is also in response to Matt's
question about the character palette window. This is a list of key
combinations you can use to type special symbols on a regular Mac
keyboard with the option key. It should work on any of Apple's English
language input keyboards, except the default currency symbols are
different for British keyboards (as noted). To compose similar lists
for keyboards in other languages, open TextEdit, hold down the option
key, and try out various combinations of Shift, Command, and Fn while
you press keys on your keyboard. This is a by-product of figuring out
ways to type accents for other languages -- both with and without
changing input language keyboards. It's not an exhaustive list. This
was assembled using a U.S. English input (laptop) keyboard, so all
numbers are typed on the top row keys of the keyboard (no numpad
entries). Using these combinations, you can type in TextEdit and Mail
and largely avoid having to use the character palette window.
Special Symbols and Characters on the regular Mac Keyboard
Categories:
1. Currency Symbols
2. Trademark and Copyright Symbols
3. Apple Symbol
4. Math and Greek Character Symbols
5. Copyediting, typesetting, and miscellaneous symbols
6. Punctuation marks: right and left quotation marks for English and
other
languages; inverted punctuation marks for Spanish
Each entry gives the symbol followed by the descriptive name and the
keyboard combination to press for the symbol. Additional comments
about context for symbol usage may follow (in parentheses).
Currency Symbols (in addition to $ = Shift+4)
¢ cents Option+4
£ pound Option+3 (on a British keyboard Option+3 is # -- the number
or hash sign that is Shift+3 on U.S. keyboards, while Shift+3 is the
pound sign)
¥ yen Option+y
€ Euro Option+Shift+2 (on a British keyboard this is Option+2)
Trademark and Copyright Symbols
© copyright Option+g
® registered Option+r
™ trademark Option+2
Apple Symbol
apple Option+Shift+K
Math and Greek Character Symbols
± plus-or-minus Option+Shift+Equals (Shift+Equals is plus)
µ micro sign Option+m (Greek letter mu), units of microns
π pi Option+p (Greek letter pi)
√ square root Option+v
÷ divided by Option+/ (slash is key to left of right-hand shift key)
· middle dot Option+Shift+9 (sign for multiplication)
≈ almost equals Option+x
≠ not equals Option+= (equals is key to right of delete key)
∞ infinity Option+5
≤ less than or equal Option+comma (Shift+comma is the less than
sign)
≥ greater than or equal Option+period (Shift+period is greater
than)
Å Angstrom sign Option+Shift+a (units of Angstroms)
∑ summation sign Option+w
° degree sign Option+Shift+8
∂ partial differential Option+d (calculus)
∫ integral Option+b (calculus)
Copyediting, typesetting, and miscellaneous symbols
‡ double dagger Option+Shift+7 (used for footnotes)
¶ pilcrow sign Option+7 (marks paragraphs)
§ section sign Option+6 (marks sections)
• bullet sign Option+8 (marks list items)
Punctuation marks: right and left quotation marks for English and other
languages; inverted punctuation marks for Spanish
‘ left single quotation mark Option+right bracket
’ right single quotation mark Option+Shift+right bracket
“ left double quotation mark Option+left bracket
” right double quotation mark Option+Shift+left bracket
« left pointing double angle quotation mark Option+backslash
» right pointing double angle quotation mark Option+Shift+backslash
‹ single left pointing angle quotation mark Option+Shift+3
› single right pointing angle quotation mark Option+Shift+4
¡ inverted exclamation mark Option+1
¿ inverted question mark Option+Shift+slash (Shift+/ is question
mark)
… ellipsis Option+semi-colon
On 18 Sep 2009, at 22:35, Lindsay Yazzolino wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I am currently taking a linguistics course, and am wondering if it is
> possible to type Unicode characters using the Mac. Much of the
> coursework involves typing IPA symbols, and up until I have been using
> what I call the cheater method (copying and pasting symbols from a
> table online). I would much prefer to be able to type these symbols
> myself for the sake of efficiency and practicality, and would
> appreciate any input any of you may have. Thanks.
>
> Lindsay
>
> >
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