January 30, 2023

5 Ways to Type Special Characters on a Mac

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Want to insert accented letters or other foreign characters while typing on your Mac? You have multiple options.

If you bought your MacBook in the United States, it almost certainly came with the standard English keyboard layout. While your keyboard will work effectively for English text, you’ll need other solutions if you want to type foreign characters like ł, é, and æ in your documents.

Special characters can be handy for proper spelling, creative work, schoolwork, and many other things. Below, we’ve explained some simple methods of typing foreign characters unavailable on your QWERTY keyboard.

1. Use the Accessibility Keyboard

The Accessibility Keyboard is a virtual keyboard that you can control onscreen with a mouse or touchscreen.

The steps to type special characters with it are as follows:

1. Launch System Settings on your Mac and go to Accessibility > Keyboard
2. Then switch on the Accessibility Keyboard option.
3. With the Accessibility Keyboard open, click Option to reveal some hidden special characters. (You can also hold the Option button on your keyboard).
4. You can access other special characters related to certain alphabets by clicking and holding the alphabet you would like to find a special character for on the Accessibility Keyboard.
5. When you do this, a little menu at the bottom right appears with variations for that alphabet.

2. Use Your Normal Keyboard

The Apple English QWERTY keyboard also allows you to input special characters for vowels and other letters.

Here’s what you need to do on your Mac:

1. Make sure your cursor is in the text input field.
2. Hold the keyboard key you would like a variation of.
3. When the context menu pops up, press the corresponding number for the symbol you want to input.

3. Character Viewer

The Character Viewer program in macOS allows you to use foreign language characters, emojis, and symbols while you type.

To open Character Viewer on your Mac, follow these simple instructions:

1. Click Edit in the menu bar and choose Emoji & Symbols from the dropdown.
2. When it opens, click on the double arrow icon at the bottom-right corner to skip the emojis and get to the symbols.

You can also press the Globe (fn) key on your Mac keyboard as a shortcut to open Character Viewer. If you’re new to the Apple keyboards, you can read our guide on Mac keyboard symbols to learn more.

4. Copy and Paste the Character From Google

You can copy and paste the character you’re looking for from Google. To use this method, first type a description of your desired character in the search engine. Copy the character from the search result, and paste it into your document.

For instance, you can search for the German character ü by searching for ‘u with two dots.’

5. Get a Physical Keyboard for That Language

While all the other solutions are software-based, you can solve this issue by a change of hardware. Apple’s official Magic Keyboard for the Mac is available in several languages.

The foreign language keyboards usually have most keys dedicated to English and foreign language characters. However, some foreign characters have designated keys.

Note that you’ll need to change your default system language to have the best user experience. So, once you get the keyboard, follow these steps:

1. Launch System Settings on your Mac and go to Keyboard from the left pane.
2. Now, scroll down on the right to the Text Input section and click Edit next to Input Sources.
3. Then click the plus (+) button, search for your desired language, and click Add.
4. Finally, click the Keyboard icon in the menu bar (located next to the Wi-Fi and Battery icons) and select the language you added to make it the default.

Type Without Boundaries on Your Mac

The above tips are helpful for people who often type foreign languages and special characters on their Macs. So, whether you’re doing a foreign language assignment or translation work, you now know how to get the right characters.

You no longer have to use plain English characters that make your documents awkward and hard to understand for readers whose first language isn’t English.

Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-type-special-characters-on-mac/

Ref: makeuseof

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