Insert ASCII or Unicode Latin-based symbols and characters (2024)

ASCII and Unicode character encoding enables computers to store and exchange data with other computers and programs. Below are lists of frequently used ASCII and Unicode Latin-based characters. For Unicode characters for non-Latin-based scripts, see Unicode character code charts by script.

In this article

  • Insert an ASCII or Unicode character into a document

  • Common symbol character codes

  • Common diacritical character codes

  • Common ligature character codes

  • ASCII nonprinting control characters

  • More information

Insert an ASCII or Unicode character into a document

If you only have to enter a few special characters or symbols, you can use the Character Map or type keyboard shortcuts. See the tables below, or see Keyboard shortcuts for international characters for a list of ASCII characters.

Notes:

  • Many languages contain symbols that could not be condensed into the 256-characters Extended ACSII set. As such, there are ASCII and Unicode variations to encompass regional characters and symbols, see Unicode character code charts by script.

  • If you have trouble entering the characters codes for the characters that you want, try using the Character Map.

Inserting ASCII characters

To insert an ASCII character, press and hold down ALT while typing the character code. For example, to insert the degree (º) symbol, press and hold down ALT while typing 0176 on the numeric keypad.

You must use the numeric keypad to type the numbers, and not the keyboard. Make sure that the NUM LOCK key is on if your keyboard requires it to type numbers on the numeric keypad.

Inserting Unicode characters

To insert a Unicode character, type the character code, press ALT, and then press X. For example, to type a dollar symbol ($), type 0024, press ALT, and then press X. For more Unicode character codes, see Unicode character code charts by script.

Important:Some of the Microsoft Office programs, such as PowerPoint and InfoPath, cannot convert Unicode codes to characters. If you need a Unicode character and are using one of the programs that doesn't support Unicode characters, use the Character Map to enter the character(s) that you need.

Notes:

  • If ALT+X converts the wrong character code into Unicode, select the correct character code before pressing ALT+X.

  • Alternatively, precede the correct character code with the text "U+". For example, typing "1U+B5" and pressing ALT+X will always return the text "1µ", while typing "1B5" and pressing ALT+X will return the text "Ƶ".

Using the Character Map

Character Map is a program built into Microsoft Windows that enables you to view the characters that are available in a selected font.

Insert ASCII or Unicode Latin-based symbols and characters (1)

Using Character Map, you can copy individual characters or a group of characters to the Clipboard and paste them into any program that can display them. To open Character Map:

  • In Windows 10: Type "character" in the search box on the task bar, and choose Character Map from the results.

  • In Windows 8: Search for the word "character" on the Start screen and choose Character Map from the results.

  • In Windows 7: Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click Character Map.

Characters are grouped by font. Click the fonts list to choose a set of characters. To select a character, click the character, click Select, click the right mouse button in your document where you want the character, and then click Paste.

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Common symbol character codes

For more character symbols, see the Character Map installed on your computer, ASCII character codes, or Unicode character code charts by script.

Glyph

Code

Glyph

Code

Currency symbols

£

ALT+0163

¥

ALT+0165

¢

ALT+0162

$

0024+ALT+X

ALT+0128

¤

ALT+0164

Legal symbols

©

ALT+0169

®

ALT+0174

§

ALT+0167

ALT+0153

Mathematical symbols

°

ALT+0176

º

ALT+0186

221A+ALT+X

+

ALT+43

#

ALT+35

µ

ALT+0181

<

ALT+60

>

ALT+62

%

ALT+37

(

ALT+40

[

ALT+91

)

ALT+41

]

ALT+93

2206+ALT+X

Fractions

¼

ALT+0188

½

ALT+0189

¾

ALT+0190

Punctuation and dialectic symbols

?

ALT+63

¿

ALT+0191

!

ALT+33

203+ALT+X

-

ALT+45

'

ALT+39

"

ALT+34

,

ALT+44

.

ALT+46

|

ALT+124

/

ALT+47

\

ALT+92

`

ALT+96

^

ALT+94

«

ALT+0171

»

ALT+0187

«

ALT+174

»

ALT+175

~

ALT+126

&

ALT+38

:

ALT+58

{

ALT+123

;

ALT+59

}

ALT+125

Form symbols

25A1+ALT+X

221A+ALT+X

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Common diacritical character codes

For a complete list of the glyphs and their character codes, see the Character Map.

Glyph

Code

Glyph

Code

Ã

ALT+0195

å

ALT+0229

Å

ALT+143

å

ALT+134

Ä

ALT+142

ä

ALT+132

À

ALT+0192

à

ALT+133

Á

ALT+0193

á

ALT+160

Â

ALT+0194

â

ALT+131

Ç

ALT+128

ç

ALT+135

Č

010C+ALT+X

č

010D+ALT+X

É

ALT+144

é

ALT+130

È

ALT+0200

è

ALT+138

Ê

ALT+202

ê

ALT+136

Ë

ALT+203

ë

ALT+137

Ĕ

0114+ALT+X

ĕ

0115+ALT+X

Ğ

011E+ALT+X

ğ

011F+ALT+X

Ģ

0122+ALT+X

ģ

0123+ALT+X

Ï

ALT+0207

ï

ALT+139

Î

ALT+0206

î

ALT+140

Í

ALT+0205

í

ALT+161

Ì

ALT+0204

ì

ALT+141

Ñ

ALT+165

ñ

ALT+164

Ö

ALT+153

ö

ALT+148

Ô

ALT+212

ô

ALT+147

Ō

014C+ALT+X

ō

014D+ALT+X

Ò

ALT+0210

ò

ALT+149

Ó

ALT+0211

ó

ALT+162

Ø

ALT+0216

ø

00F8+ALT+X

Ŝ

015C+ALT+X

ŝ

015D+ALT+X

Ş

015E+ALT+X

ş

015F+ALT+X

Ü

ALT+154

ü

ALT+129

Ū

ALT+016A

ū

016B+ALT+X

Û

ALT+0219

û

ALT+150

Ù

ALT+0217

ù

ALT+151

Ú

00DA+ALT+X

ú

ALT+163

Ÿ

0159+ALT+X

ÿ

ALT+152

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Character codes for ligature characters

For more information about typographic ligatures, see Typographic ligature. For a complete list of the ligatures and their character codes, see the Character Map.

Glyph

Code

Glyph

Code

Æ

ALT+0198

æ

ALT+0230

ß

ALT+0223

ß

ALT+225

Œ

ALT+0140

œ

ALT+0156

ʩ

02A9+ALT+X

ʣ

02A3+ALT+X

ʥ

02A5+ALT+X

ʪ

02AA+ALT+X

ʫ

02AB+ALT+X

ʦ

0246+ALT+X

ʧ

02A7+ALT+X

Љ

0409+ALT+X

Ю

042E+ALT+X

Њ

040A+ALT+X

Ѿ

047E+ALT+x

Ы

042B+ALT+X

Ѩ

0468+ALT+X

Ѭ

049C+ALT+X

FDF2+ALT+X

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ASCII nonprinting control characters

ASCII table numbers 0–31 are assigned for control characters used to control some peripheral devices such as printers. For example, 12 represents the form feed/new page function. This command instructs a printer to go to the top of the next page.

ASCII nonprinting control characters chart

Decimal

Character

Decimal

Character

null

data link escape

16

start of heading

1

device control 1

17

start of text

2

device control 2

18

end of text

3

device control 3

19

end of transmission

4

device control 4

20

inquiry

5

negative acknowledge

21

acknowledge

6

synchronous idle

22

bell

7

end of transmission block

23

backspace

8

cancel

24

horizontal tab

9

end of medium

25

line feed/new line

10

substitute

26

vertical tab

11

escape

27

form feed/new page

12

file separator

28

carriage return

13

group separator

29

shift out

14

record separator

30

shift in

15

unit separator

31

space

32

DEL

127

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More information

  • ASCII character codes

  • Hebrew keyboard

  • Keyboard shortcuts for international characters

  • Insert a check mark or other symbol

Insert ASCII or Unicode Latin-based symbols and characters (2024)

FAQs

How do you insert ASCII or Unicode? ›

To insert a Unicode character, type the character code, press ALT, and then press X. For example, to type a dollar symbol ($), type 0024, press ALT, and then press X.

How do you insert an ASCII character? ›

Inserting ASCII Characters

Go to Home tab, in the Font group, change the font to Wingdings (or other font set). Press and hold the ALT key and type the character code on the numeric keypad.

What is ASCII and Unicode characters? ›

Unicode stands for Universal Character Set. ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Usage. Unicode is standardized by the IT industry to be used in encoding and representing characters in computers. ASCII is used for electronic communication and in programming languages such as HTML.

What is an example of a Unicode character? ›

Unicode supports more than a million code points, which are written with a "U" followed by a plus sign and the number in hex; for example, the word "Hello" is written U+0048 U+0065 U+006C U+006C U+006F (see hex chart).

How do I type ASCII characters on my keyboard? ›

On a standard 101 keyboard, special extended ASCII characters such as é or ß can be typed by holding the ALT key and typing the corresponding 4 digit ASCII code. For example é is typed by holding the ALT key and typing 0233 on the keypad.

How do I insert Unicode symbols? ›

Insert Unicode characters by entering their u+XXXX code
  1. Alt+0171 on Windows.
  2. Alt+, on OS X with the de_CH keyboard.
  3. Alt+Q on OS X with the de_DE keyboard.
  4. AltGr+y on Linux with the de_CH keyboard.
  5. and so on!

What is ASCII characters example? ›

For example, lowercase i would be represented in the ASCII encoding by binary 1101001 = hexadecimal 69 (i is the ninth letter) = decimal 105. Despite being an American standard, ASCII does not have a code point for the cent (¢).

How do I get an ASCII character code? ›

Get an input character from the user and the give the ASCII value of the given input as the output.
  1. Input. b.
  2. Output. ...
  3. Input. B.
  4. Output. C Program to find ASCII values of a character. #include <stdio.h> char c; printf("Enter a character: "); scanf("%c",&c); printf("The ASCII value of inserted character is %d",c);
May 6, 2024

How is ASCII written? ›

ASCII is an 8-bit code. That is, it uses eight bits to represent a letter or a punctuation mark. Eight bits are called a byte. A binary code with eight digits, such as 1101 10112, can be stored in one byte of computer memory.

What are Unicode characters or symbols? ›

Unicode is a universal character encoding standard. This standard includes roughly 100000 characters to represent characters of different languages. While ASCII uses only 1 byte the Unicode uses 4 bytes to represent characters. Hence, it provides a very wide variety of encoding.

How do I enter special characters on my keyboard? ›

Use the right-hand Alt key in combination with the appropriate letter to get one of the more common combinations (for example, Alt+e will result in: é). Press the symbol you want to use and then the letter you want to use it with (for example, if you first press the ~ symbol and then the “n” key, you'll get: ñ).

How do I type all symbols on my keyboard? ›

Press Alt + [the number code for the symbol or accented letter]. For example, Alt + 1 inserts ☺, while Alt + 0153 inserts the trademark ™. Here's a quick list of some of the more common accented letters and symbols. For more, refer to the ANSI character set page.

How do I get a Unicode character? ›

Unicode characters can be produced either by selecting them from a display or by typing a certain sequence of keys on a physical keyboard. In addition, a character produced by one of these methods in one web page or document can be copied into another.

Is emoji a Unicode character? ›

Emoji, which are treated as pictographs, are encoded in the Unicode Standard based primarily on their general appearance, not on an intended meaning.

What is a Unicode character in a password? ›

Unicode is just a system to put a number to each character. A is U+0041 (or just 65), z is U+007A (or 122), Á is U+00C1 (or 193), Σ is U+03A3 (or 931), ♥ is U+2655 (or 9813) etc.

How do I know if a file is Unicode or ASCII? ›

For plain Unicode vs ASCII, you can't really tell for certain (although you may be able to guess based on content). However if it's UTF-16 vs ASCII, the first two bytes will tell you: For UTF-16, the first two bytes are a byte-order-marker (either FF FE or FE FF).

How to convert ASCII code to Unicode? ›

Algorithm for ASCII to Unicode Conversion
  1. Step 1: Accept an ASCII string (inputString) as input.
  2. Step 2: Prepare an empty string (outputString) to store the Unicode output.
  3. Step 4: Iterate through each character in the input string.
  4. Step 5: Obtain the ASCII code of the current character (asciiCode).
Feb 8, 2024

How do I type this symbol on my keyboard? ›

Use the Symbol Viewer to find more symbols.

Click the "Keyboard" option and then check "Show viewers for keyboard, emoji, and symbols in menu bar." Click the viewer icon that appears in the menu bar and select "Show Emoji & Symbols." Browse through the categories of symbols and double-click the one you want to insert.

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