Platform: Windows® PC Ref no: ins107 Date: May 2007 Version: 1 Author: C. Douglas

Foreign accents and special symbols in Microsoft Word 2007®

Insert a symbol or special character

You can use the Symbol dialog box to insert symbols, such as ¼ and ©, or special characters, such as an em dash (—) or ellipsis (…) that are not on your keyboard, as well as Unicode (Unicode: A character encoding standard developed by the Unicode Consortium. By using more than one byte to represent each character, Unicode enables almost all of the written languages in the world to be represented by using a single character set.) characters.

The types of symbols and characters that you can insert depend on the font that you choose. For example, some fonts may include fractions (¼), international characters (Ç, ë), and international monetary symbols (£, ¥). The built-in Symbol font includes arrows, bullets, and scientific symbols. You might also have additional symbol fonts, such as Wingdings, that include decorative symbols.

You can increase or decrease the size of the Symbol dialog box. Move the pointer to the lower-right corner of the dialog box until it changes into a double-headed arrow, and then drag to the size that you want.

Insert a symbol

• Click where you want to insert the symbol.

• On the Insert tab, in the Symbols group, click Symbol.

• Do one of the following:

• Click the symbol that you want in the drop-down list.

• If the symbol that you want to insert is not in the list, click More Symbols. In the Font box, click the font that you want, click the symbol that you want to insert, and then click Insert.

If you are using an expanded font, such as Arial or Times New Roman, the Subset list appears. Use this list to choose from an extended list of language characters, including Greek and Russian (Cyrillic), if available.

• Click Close.

Insert a special character

• Click where you want to insert the special character.

• On the Insert tab, in the Symbols group, click Symbol, and then click More Symbols.

• Click the Special Characters tab.

• Click the character that you want to insert, and then click Insert.

• Click Close. 2

Insert a Unicode character

You can insert a Unicode character into a document by selecting a character from the Symbol dialog box or by typing the character code directly in a document.

Select a Unicode character from the Symbol dialog box

When you select a Unicode character in the Symbol dialog box, its character code appears in the Character code box.

• Click where you want to insert the Unicode character.

• On the Insert tab, in the Symbols group, click Symbol, and then click More Symbols.

• On the Symbols tab, in the Font box, click the font that you want.

• In the from box, click Unicode (hex).

• If the Subset box is available, click a character subset.

• Click the symbol that you want to insert, and then click Insert.

• Click Close.

Find a Unicode character code

• When you select a Unicode character in the Symbol dialog box, its character code appears in the Character code box.

• On the Insert tab, in the Symbols group, click Symbol, and then click More Symbols.

• On the Symbols tab, in the Font box, click the font that you want.

• In the from box, click Unicode (hex).

• The Unicode character code is displayed in the Character code box.

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Where to go for more help or information You can get further help from the Information Services Help Desks at:

Thompson Library: 01782 294771 Brindley IT Centre: 01782 294135 Octagon IT Centre: 01785 353339

Online: www.staffs.ac.uk/ishelp Email: [email protected] (for all IT and Library queries)

All Microsoft ® product screenshots and references are used by permission of the Microsoft® Corporation. Windows® operating system

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