Day: November 16, 2016

Science, Software

Compose Key Sequences for Useful Unicode Characters

If you activate a Compose key on your keyboard:

Compose key selection
Compose key selection

Then you can insert Unicode characters without memorizing their hex values. Of course, you must memorize the Compose key sequences. Fortunately, they’re more-or-less mnemonic for the ones I occasionally use, which are hereby cherrypicked from that list.

Press-and-release the Compose key (right-Win), then type the characters as shown to get the symbol in quotes:

  • o c “©” copyright # COPYRIGHT SIGN
  • o o “°” degree # DEGREE SIGN
  • o r “®” registered # REGISTERED SIGN
  • t m “™” U2122 # TRADE MARK SIGN
  • s m “℠” U2120 # SERVICE MARK
  • . . “…” ellipsis # HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS
  • . – “·” periodcentered # MIDDLE DOT
  • . = “•” enfilledcircbullet # BULLET
  • + – “±” plusminus # PLUS-MINUS SIGN (∓ MINUS-PLUS is U2213)
  • x x “×” multiply # MULTIPLICATION SIGN
  • < < “«” guillemotleft # LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
  • > > “»” guillemotright # RIGHT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK
  • c / “¢” cent # CENT SIGN
  • – – . “–” U2013 # EN DASH
  • – – – “—” U2014 # EM DASH
  • < – “←” U2190 # LEFTWARDS ARROW
  • – > “→” U2192 # RIGHTWARDS ARROW
  • = > “⇒” U21D2 # RIGHTWARDS DOUBLE ARROW
  • ? ! “‽” U203D # INTERROBANG
  • p o o “💩” U1F4A9 # PILE OF POO
  • m u “µ” mu # MICRO SIGN
  • d i “⌀” U2300 # DIAMETER SIGN
  • 1 4 “¼” onequarter # VULGAR FRACTION ONE QUARTER
  • 1 2 “½” onehalf # VULGAR FRACTION ONE HALF
  • 3 4 “¾” threequarters # VULGAR FRACTION THREE QUARTERS
  • 1 1 0 “⅒” U2152 # VULGAR FRACTION ONE TENTH (and similar)
  • ^ 1 “¹” onesuperior # SUPERSCRIPT ONE (also 0 2 3 + -…)
  • _ 1 “₁” U2081 # SUBSCRIPT ONE (also 0 2 3 + -…)
  • e ‘ “é” eacute # LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE
  • e ` “è” egrave # LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH GRAVE

Producing Greek letters requires a “dead_greek” key, so it’s easier to start with bare hex Unicode values at U0391 (Α) and U03b1 (α) and work upward until you find what you need:

  • U03a9 Ω uppercase omega
  • U03c9 ω lowercase omega
  • U03c4 τ lowercase tau
  • U03c0 π lowercase pi
  • U0394 Δ uppercase delta
  • U03F4 ϴ uppercase theta
  • U03B8 θ lowercase theta
  • U03D5 ϕ phi math symbol
  • U03A6 Φ uppercase phi
  • U03C6 φ lowercase phi

Odds and ends:

  • U00a0 | | non-breaking space
  • U2007 | | figure space (invisible digit space)
  • U202F | | narrow space
  • U2011 ‑ non-breaking hyphen
  • U2030 ′ prime (not quote)
  • U2033 ″ double-prime (not double-quote)
  • U2245 ≅ approximately equal
  • U2264 ≤ less-than or equal
  • U2265 ≥ greater-than or equal
  • U221A √ square root
  • U221B ∛ cube root
  • U221C ∜ fourth root (yeah, right)
  • U221D ∝ proportional to
  • U2300 ⌀ diameter

If you set the keyboard layout to US International With Dead Keys, maybe you (definitely not I) could remember all the dead keys.