How to insert special characters in Microsoft Word

Alt+X: the shortcut worth learning

Type the hexadecimal code point directly in the document, then press Alt and X together with the cursor immediately after the last digit. Word replaces the digits with the character. Typing 00b0 then Alt+X gives the degree sign, 2192 then Alt+X gives a rightwards arrow, 20ac then Alt+X gives a euro sign.

It works in reverse too. Put the cursor right after any character and press Alt+X, and Word turns it back into its code point. That is a useful way to check whether a document contains a real minus sign or a hyphen pretending to be one.

Two gotchas. If the character before your digits is also a hexadecimal digit, Word can swallow it into the code; type a space first, then delete it afterwards. And Alt+X is a Word feature, not a Windows one, so it does not work in Outlook message bodies that use the plain text editor, nor in Excel.

Insert then Symbol

• Open the Insert tab, then Symbol, then More Symbols.
• Set Font to the one you are using, and set the from box to Unicode (hex).
• Type the code point in the Character code box to jump straight to it.
• Use the Subset dropdown to browse whole blocks: Arrows, Mathematical Operators, Currency Symbols, Geometric Shapes, Dingbats.
• Click Shortcut Key to bind a character you use often to your own keystroke.

The check mark question, answered properly

Most guides tell you to switch to the Wingdings font and type a lowercase a for a check mark. That works on screen and breaks everywhere else: what is stored is the letter a, and the tick only appears while the Wingdings font is applied. Copy that text into an email, a spreadsheet or a web form and you get a stray letter a.

Use the real Unicode character instead. 2713 then Alt+X gives the light check mark, 2714 gives the heavy check mark, 2611 gives a ballot box with a check inside it, and 2705 gives the green emoji tick. Those survive any copy because they are the character, not a font trick.

Assigning your own shortcut to a character

If you insert the same character several times a day, the Insert then Symbol dialogue has a Shortcut Key button that binds it to a keystroke of your choosing. The binding is stored in your Normal template, so it follows you across every document on that machine rather than living inside one file.

Pick a combination Word does not already use. Ctrl and Alt together with a punctuation key is usually safe, and the dialogue tells you what a combination is currently assigned to before you commit, so you can back out of a collision rather than discover it later.

The alternative route is AutoCorrect, which trades a keystroke for a typed marker. Map a string you would never write otherwise, such as two semicolons followed by deg, to the degree sign, and it fires as you type. AutoCorrect entries also travel with your Normal template and, unlike a shortcut key, they survive being typed on a keyboard without the modifier layout you expected.

Symbols in headers, footers and fields

The Alt and X conversion works in the body text of a document and in most text frames, but not everywhere. Inside a field code, inside some content controls and in a few dialogue boxes, the keystroke either does nothing or is intercepted. In those places the Insert then Symbol dialogue still works, and copying the character always works.

One related trap is font substitution in headers and footers. If a header uses a decorative font with narrow coverage, a symbol that renders perfectly in the body can turn into an empty box in the header even though the character is identical. That is a font problem rather than a Word problem, and the fix is to set that run in a font with wider symbol coverage rather than to change the character.

Symbols in equations are a separate system

Word has a second, parallel way of producing symbols: the equation editor, reached with Alt and the equals key. Inside an equation, backslash commands convert into characters, so typing a backslash followed by times gives the multiplication sign and a backslash followed by pm gives plus-minus. The syntax is close enough to LaTeX that anyone who has written a paper will recognise it.

The important difference is that an equation is an object, not text. Its characters do not appear in a plain text export, they are not found by a normal document search, and copying an equation into an email usually produces an image or nothing at all. Use the equation editor for mathematics that needs proper layout, and use ordinary characters for a symbol that happens to appear in a sentence.

Stopping Word from changing your characters

Word rewrites as you type. Straight quotes become curly quotes, two hyphens become an en dash or an em dash, and three full stops become a single ellipsis character. That is usually what you want in prose and exactly what you do not want in code samples or file paths.

Turn it off per rule under File, Options, Proofing, AutoCorrect Options, on the AutoFormat As You Type tab. The relevant checkboxes are the straight quotes with smart quotes rule and the hyphens with dash rule. Undo immediately after a single unwanted change, with Ctrl+Z, reverts just that substitution and leaves the setting alone.

The same AutoCorrect dialogue is the best place to add your own shortcuts. Map a string you would never type otherwise, such as two semicolons followed by deg, to the degree sign, and you have a shortcut that follows you across every Word document on that account.