Better Ways to Use Special Characters in OS X

Posted by John Baker on 03/21/07 in Apple, Applications, Tips & Tricks, Widgets

CharacterPal user interface As a writer, I have to use some special nonstandard characters from time to time. Using this blog as an example, sometimes I’ll want to use the symbols for the Ctrl key (⌃), Option key (⌥), or Command key (⌘) to better illustrate a keyboard shortcut. Coming from a Windows world, I was used to using the built-in Character Map to find and insert special characters. I struggled a bit at first finding an easy way to do this in OS X, but I’ve recently discovered two great ways to use special characters that you may not yet know about.

The first option, the Character Pallete, is built in to OS X so you don’t even have to download anything. If you only speak one language you may not have ever discovered this feature, because it’s hidden in the International section of your System Preferences. In this pane, navigate to the Input Menu tab, and check the box beside Character Pallete, which should be the first item in your list. Once you’ve enabled this item, the input menu will appear on your menu bar if you hadn’t already been using it. Aside from giving you that warm patriotic feeling inside, this menu actually serves some useful purposes. When you need to insert a special character, just click on the input menu and call up the Character Pallete from here, double-clicking on the character you need to insert in your text.

The second choice is to download the CharacterPal widget from Taco Widgets. This widget is simpler to navigate than the menus of the Character Pallete, but it doesn’t feature as many special characters, and of course it hides itself away in the Dashboard when you’re not using it. If you really need it sitting on your desktop for easy access, you could enable the developer mode for Dashboard or, like I did, use Amnesty Singles to make the widget its own little app.

After using both of these options pretty extensively, I find that I’m really fond of the Character Pallete for its immense depth, its ease-of-access from the menu bar, and the ability to set favorite special characters for even quicker access. Either way you decide to go, though, you’ll be inserting special characters left and right before you can say “interrobang.”

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13 Comment(s)

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J said on

March 21st, 2007 at 12:47 pm

Is there no way to access the character pallete without having that annoying flag on my menu bar though?

Dylan said on

March 21st, 2007 at 2:03 pm

@J: Many apps have it in the “Edit” menu, under “Special Characters…”.

Andre said on

March 21st, 2007 at 3:40 pm

Accents and special characters are just plain annoying to do. I attend a French school, and I need to be able to type my work with all the required accents. Having to access a special window or widget each time I want to use an accent just doesn’t cut it. I hate to say it, but Microsoft’s got a 1-up on the Mac when it comes to this. Alt-1-3-0 FTW.

John Baker said on

March 21st, 2007 at 4:01 pm

@Andre

Actually using accented characters on OS X is much easier and more flexible than on Windows.

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codemacext.html

That was featured on the MacCast this past week, interestingly enough coinciding with my post here. Anyway, to give an example, if I want an accented e, then I would type Option-e-e (output: é), or for an accented a I would type Option-e-a (output: á). I think it’s these kind of little-publicized tricks that make OS X a clear winner.

Mac vs PC said on

March 21st, 2007 at 4:12 pm

Great advice, I have often wanted something to do exactly what this does for my Website/Forum. This will b e a big help!

Thanks,
http://www.switchingtomac.com/

Daniel said on

March 21st, 2007 at 4:15 pm

@Andre: ⌥ - ` - letter

alej744 said on

March 21st, 2007 at 5:41 pm

Much easier than that little utility window

Andre said on

March 22nd, 2007 at 12:34 am

Wow, that actually works.. In the year I’ve been using a Mac and relying on Microsoft Word’s poor spell checking, I’ve never ever heard about that. Would anyone happen to know where I could find a full list of french accents and their shortcuts?

That said, I don’t really think it’s any better than Microsoft’s version. It’s the same thing, but not using the numeric keypad. And since I’ve been using accents in Windows since I was in kindergarten, it’s going to take some time getting used to.

Sahil said on

March 22nd, 2007 at 9:53 am

I’ve realized that OS X is made for ease of use (even with stuff that they don’t tell you about). For instance, if you want to use the tilde (~) over characters, you could either look it up in the pallete or imagine which letter you’d use it with most (n). Therefore, Option + n brings up the tilde and then you type the letter below (ie ñ ã). Same goes for the umlaut (¨). It is used most with the u (ie, ü), therefore, it has an Option + U keyboard shortcut. There are a bunch of others like this which make working with OS X in foreign languages a cinch (eg é ü î å ñ ç).

Enjoy.

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Clarkeness said on

March 22nd, 2007 at 9:55 am

If you use the dashboard widget press F12 to bring up the dashboard then click and hold your mouse on said widget push f12 again to make dashboard go away and you are left with the widget floating on your desktop.

Supine said on

March 22nd, 2007 at 10:00 am

Unlike the F12 trick or dev mode, Amnesty Singles lets you choose the window level the widgets sits on.

imajoebob said on

March 29th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

As a longtime PC user, I was used to the (great) Alt-123 on the keypad system for alternate characters, and missed it when I switched. But the Option and Shift-Option system works just as well, and it gives you some mnemonics to remember where characters can be found, like opt-r for ®, opt-e for ´ (often an accented character in Spanish), opt-s for ß (a double-s in German), and opt-g for © (okay, opt-c might be better, but that’s ç, and the G is pretty similar).

You don’t get everything, but reasonable hit-or-miss tries can be faster than the character palette.

liz said on

November 15th, 2007 at 6:19 am

I don’t have a character palette option on international>input menu, and on edit text it will not open. any suggestions or solutions?

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fc89b76a9620 said on

May 9th, 2008 at 10:00 pm

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