Type special characters in OS X
Your Mac’s keyboard makes it easy to type any of the standard characters—the ones used most frequently in everyday typing. But OS X lets you use hundreds of special characters that don’t appear on your keyboard’s keys. This week’s video explains three ways to access special characters in OS X.
Transcript
Your Mac’s keyboard makes it easy to type any of the standard characters—the ones used most frequently in everyday typing. But OS X lets you use hundreds of special characters that don’t appear on your keyboard’s keys. These include special symbols for currency and punctuation, symbols, and much more.
Earlier this year, I reviewed a great utility called Characters that makes it simple to find and type special characters using a systemwide menu. But you don’t need third-party software: Here are three ways to access special characters in OS X.
Holding down keys If you’re running OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, you can type some characters—specifically, those that are accented or modified versions of common letters—by simply holding down the base character. For example, if you need to type an accented E, just hold down the E key for a second or so; you’ll see a popover displaying the available variations on the letter E. Click one, or press the number corresponding to it, to type that character. On a U.S. English keyboard, this trick works for A, C, E, I, L, N, O, S, U, Y, and Z.
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http://www.macworld.com/article/2036310/type-special-characters-in-os-x.html#tk.rss_all
