How to: Special character keyboard shortcuts in OS X
There are perhaps two and a half ways to access or type special characters in Mac OS X. The first is to hunt and peck for the symbol you need using the Special Character Viewer (System Preferences > Keyboard > click “Show Keyboard & Character Viewer in menu bar). The half comes via assigning keyboard shortcut for summoning the Special Character Viewer and then hunting.
Then there’s the much more precise method of using specific keyboard shortcuts, which are integrated into Mac OS X, for quickly and easily typing special characters and symbols without summoning the viewer and furtively hunting with the mouse.
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If you’re anything like me, memorizing a handful of these combinations (i.e. ⌥ + Shift + 2 = €, ⌥ + 4 = ¢, ⌥ + ; = …, ⌥ + 8 = •) will be quite sufficient. Otherwise, it will probably be helpful to print out one of the available downloadable formats.
That said, the above is a small sample of the special characters And symbols available in OS X, most of which can’t be typed using a keyboard shortcut. Thereupon, in order to obviate wasteful mousing around, set up a keyboard shortcut (link above) for summoning the Special Character Viewer — I use ⌘ + ⌥ + T (Command + Option + T).
Know any nifty OS X tips or shortcuts? Share it in the comments below…
via wikiHow
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What are the special symbols for SHIFT, CONTROL, OPTION, and COMMAND? They’re not marked on the keyboard, and the symbols aren’t very intuitive. Could you please tell/show me what they are…
SHIFT =
CONTROL =
OPTION = ⌥
COMMAND = ⌘
Control: ⌃
Shift: Little help?
http://newmacuser.com/apple-keyboard-symbols/
The Shift symbol is called “Upwards White Arrow” in Unicode. Open the Character Viewer, and in the search box (“Description & code”) search for “Upwards White Arrow”. Or find it via View:All Characters > Symbols > Arrows.
I tweeted an example of the symbol, which you can also cut and paste from the text:
http://twitter.com/macjay/statuses/15275061153894400
⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧⇧
Rather than worrying about storing and memorizing that list, discover it for yourself: Open up the Keyboard Viewer (from the menu bar item mentioned here). It shows you all the keys on the keyboard — labelling special keys using their symbolic labels — and responds when you hold down modifiers to show you exactly what character you’ll get for various option and/or shift combinations. A MUCH MUCH handier way to learn these than off some list.
Also: OF COURSE all of those symbols for special keys are present in Apple’s unicode fonts. How else do you think they print them in the menus?
If you set Character Viewer to show “All Characters”, “By Category”, then you can find pretty much all of them in either the Arrows or the Technical Symbols sections, under Symbols.
eg ⇧⌃⌥⌘ ⇥⎋⌫⏏ ⌤↩ ↖↘⇞⇟
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[...] also: — How to: Create a keyboard shortcut — How to: Special character keyboard shortcuts in OS X — LiteSwitch: The best Mac app switcher — How to: Cycle all open windows in [...]
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