Save yourself some time from digging around in the Symbol dialog or spending unnecessary hours in the Equation Editor by knowing some useful character shortcuts. The first two methods apply to any program; the last two, to Microsoft Office only (I’m using 2003).
∙ASCII
I first learned to program back in MS-DOS 6.22, with batch files and QBasic. I thus acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of the 256-character extended ASCII character set, which is still consistent enough with several font packages to be useful. These can be typed by using the ten-key with the Alt key (for instance, Alt+127 gives the delete character, ⌂).
Of note to scientists and engineers are the following symbols:
| 143 | Å | angstrom |
| 224 | α | alpha |
| 225 | ß | Beta (Eszett in some fonts) |
| 226 | Γ | gamma |
| 227 | π | pi |
| 228 | Σ | majuscule sigma or summation |
| 229 | σ | miniscule sigma |
| 230 | µ | mu |
| 231 | τ | tau |
| 234 | Ω | omega |
| 235 | δ | delta |
| 236 | ∞ | infinity |
| 237 | φ | phi |
| 238 | ε | epsilon (element in some fonts) |
| 239 | ∩ | union |
| 240 | ≡ | definition |
| 241 | ± | |
| 242 | ≥ | |
| 243 | ≤ | |
| 246 | ÷ | |
| 247 | ≈ | |
| 248 | ° | degree sign |
| 249 | ∙ | |
| 251 | √ | radical |
| 252 | ⁿ | |
| 253 | ² |
The degree symbol, in particular, I’ve found useful.
∙Character Map
Some other fonts, such as Office 2007/Vista’s Calibri, contain additional useful symbols, such as superscripted 3, 4, 5, etc. To view and copy these, use Character Map (Start→ Programs→ Accessories→ System Tools). But that’s the slow way, so try the Unicode shortcuts for those characters.
∙Unicode Shortcuts
If you learn the Unicode shortcuts (I don’t have them memorized, but you can look them up in Character Map), then you’ll have easy access to gems like ∂, ‰, and, with the combining dot above, the fluxion dot notation for flow rates, V̇. To use them, you have to type the four-digit hexadecimal code (circled below) and then press Alt+’X’ to convert it to the Unicode symbol. This appears to be program-specific, though, to MS Word and maybe some others.
Unicode in Character Map
If your memory isn’t too precious, give The UnicodeInput Utility a shot as well.
∙Symbol Dialog
Stop! Don’t touch that Insert menu! There’s a better way: customize your toolbar with direct access to the Symbol menu. If nothing else works for you (for instance, in Excel this is probably the best way after ASCII shortcuts), then the Symbol dialog can be easily accessed. Go to the Customize dialog:
Accessing the Customize dialog
From there, you have access to the breadth of the particular Office application’s menu commands. In this case, we’re interested in Symbol, so choose Insert in the left-hand pane and scroll down in the right-hand pane until you see Symbol. Drag the button where you want it, and, presto, instant access!
These are sure to save you some time as you prepare technical documents in Word or other programs.
Thanks to FileFormat.info for some of the Unicode information on this page.
