Chapter 17: Working with Documents in Windows XP

Using Special Characters with Character Map

Do you need to use unusual characters, like 0xc6, 0xd6, or 0x61? The Character Map accessory can help you find them. Open Character Map by choosing Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | Character Map. You see the Character Map window shown in Figure 17-7.

If Character Map doesn't appear on the Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools menu, you can install Character Map from the Windows XP CD-ROM. It's in the Accessories And Utilities category, in the Accessories subcategory.

Figure 17-7: The Character Map lets you use unusual characters.

To use a character from the Character Map:

1. Select a font from the Font list. The characters available in this font appear in the Character Map window, arranged in a 20-column grid.
2. Double-click the character you want to use; or single-click it and click Select. The selected character is magnified and a copy of it appears in the Characters to copy box.
3. When you have displayed all the characters you want from this font in the Characters to copy box, click Copy. Character Map copies the characters to the Windows Clipboard.
4. Paste the characters into a document using a command in the program you use to edit that document. (Most programs use Edit | Paste or CTRL-V to paste from the Clipboard.)

You can remove characters from the Characters To Copy box by clicking in the box and either backspacing over the characters or deleting them.

Another way to use many unusual characters is to select them in Character Map and notice the keystroke notation in the bottom right corner of the Character Map window. Once you know this notation, you can produce the character in any document without running Character Map. For example, using the information in Figure 17-7 you could type a 0x8c character in any document as follows:

1. Open the document in a word processing program.
2. Set the font to Times New Roman.
3. Press the NUM LOCK on your keyboard.
4. While holding down the ALT key, type 0140.