Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 22, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Word allows you to add just about any character you can think of to your document. You add most characters by using the keyboard or by choosing Symbol from the Insert menu or, in Word 2007, choosing Symbol from the Symbols group on the Insert tab of the ribbon. Regardless of how you enter a character, Word tracks each one internally using a special numeric code. This code is necessary because computers can only understand numbers, not actual alphabetic characters. This numeric code is called either the ASCII or ANSI code.
In small computers, the code most often used is called ASCII, which is an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is a code comprised of 128 symbols assigned to the values 0 through 127. For instance, the letter A is represented in the computer by the number 65.
If you know the ASCII code for a particular character, and you want to enter it into your document, you can do so by holding down the Alt key and pressing the three-digit code on the numeric keypad. For instance, the ASCII code for an uppercase A is 65. You could enter this character by holding down the Alt key and pressing 065 on the numeric keypad. (Remember, you need to use a three-digit code.) Word responds by displaying the character on your screen.
A variation on the ASCII code is referred to as the ANSI code. (ANSI is an acronym for the American National Standards Institute.) The ANSI code can be considered a superset of ASCII, because it can represent many more characters than can be represented with the ASCII code. Remember that plain ASCII can represent only 128 characters. From a technical standpoint, this is because each character is represented using a single byte of data storage. ANSI, on the other hand, uses two bytes for storing each character, and can therefore be used to represent approximately 65,000 characters. The added flexibility provided by the ANSI code is necessary in today's international market for software.
ANSI characters are entered in your document in a similar fashion to ASCII codes. You hold down the Alt key, but instead use a four-digit code. For instance, if you wanted to insert the symbol for the British pound, you would hold down the Alt key and press 0163 (the four-digit code) on the numeric keypad. Word responds by placing the character in your document.
If you need to know more about either the ASCII or ANSI codes, any good programmer's reference will provide the information you need.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1359) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.
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2021-05-22 23:21:46
You may want to enter characters that display a four-character code in the Character Map applet, but it's not clear what to do with the code. For example, in Character Map, examine the Arial font and scroll approximately three-quarters of the way down. You can find fraction and other interesting characters. You may want to use a five-eighths fraction character. Click the five-eighths character, and at the bottom of the applet you see: U+215D: Vulgar Fraction Five Eighths. In Word, you could try holding down the Alt key, but how could you type 215D on the keypad. So what's going on? What do you do?
The U+215D shows that it's a Unicode character and reveals its Hexadecimal (base 16) value. The keypad technique works with the decimal (base 10) value. There are various calculators and even an Excel spreadsheet function to convert Hexadecimal to Decimal. If a spreadsheet cell contains =HEX2DEC(215D), it will display the decimal value 8541. In Word, hold down Alt and type 8541 on the keypad. When you release the Alt key, you get a five-eighths stacked fraction. Great!
But that seems like a lot of work. If you use a lot of such characters frequently, you can make a cheat-sheet spreadsheet that shows the decimal values of the ones you use frequently. But for the one-off characters, what else can you do?
In your Word document, you can type the Hexadecimal value shown in Character Map. Type 215D. Select the 215D that you just typed. Press Alt+X. The Hex code turns into a selected five-eighths. Press Alt+X again and the selected character toggles back to its Hex value. You can use the Alt+X toggle on a selected character in a document to discover its code. Maybe you'd like to find and use a related character.
Here's another method to get the character into Word. In Character Map, click that five-eighths character. Click the Select button. (You can click several characters and Select for each to get a string of them in the Characters to Copy box.) Use your pointing device to select the character (or string of them) in the box. Click the Copy button (same as pressing Ctrl+C). Alt+Tab to your Word document, and Ctrl+V paste them into Word.
2021-05-22 18:52:00
You may want to enter characters that display a four-character code in the Character Map applet, but it's not clear what to do with the code. For example, in Character Map, examine the Arial font and scroll approximately three-quarters of the way down. You can find fraction and other interesting characters. You may want to use a five-eighths fraction character. Click the five-eighths character, and at the bottom of the applet you see: U+215D: Vulgar Fraction Five Eighths. In Word, you could try holding down the Alt key, but how could you type 215D on the keypad. So what's going on? What do you do?
The U+215D shows that it's a Unicode character and reveals its Hexadecimal (base 16) value. The keypad technique works with the decimal (base 10) value. There are various calculators and even an Excel spreadsheet function to convert Hexadecimal to Decimal. If a spreadsheet cell contains =HEX2DEC(215D), it will display the decimal value 8541. In Word, hold down Alt and type 8541 on the keypad. When you release the Alt key, you get a five-eighths stacked fraction. Great!
But that seems like a lot of work. If you use a lot of such characters frequently, you can make a cheat-sheet spreadsheet that shows the decimal values of the ones you use frequently. But for the one-off characters, what else can you do?
In your Word document, you can type the Hexadecimal value shown in Character Map. Type 215D. Select the 215D that you just typed. Press Alt+X. The Hex code turns into a selected five-eighths. Press Alt+X again and the selected character toggles back to its Hex value. You can use the Alt+X toggle on a selected character in a document to discover its code. Maybe you'd like to find and use a related character.
Here's another method to get the character into Word. In Character Map, click that five-eighths character. Click the Select button. (You can click several characters and Select for each to get a string of them in the Characters to Copy box.) Use your pointing device to select the character (or string of them) in the box. Click the Copy button (same as pressing Ctrl+C). Alt+Tab to your Word document, and Ctrl+V paste them into Word.
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