Some special characters

For a variety of special characters, see the Character Map, Windows 98 operating system.

From the Windows Start menu:

Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map; click.

Double left-click a character. It will appear in the "Characters to copy:" field. From there it can be cut and copied. In addition, the keystroke for each character will appear in the bottom right corner of the character map (keystroke -- the keyboard key/s used to produce a character).

On the Macintosh, this can be achieved by clicking the Apple menu in the top left corner, and choosing the keyboard accesory. A window will open, with a reproduction of your keyboard and a text field. Hold down a modifier key & you will see the keyboard change accordingly (for example, holding down shift will display capital letters). If you need to, you can select various fonts as well, as many fonts have different characters. You can then write into the field & copy & paste the result where you want (or memorize the key-combination for later perusal).

As a side note, in Denmark, we use three so-called special characters, the vowels Æ, Ø and Å. The Æ is a ligature of A and E, and is pronounced somewhat like an English A (in cake, for example). The Ø is a ligature of O and E, and there isn't a direct comparison to be made with an English vowel, but it is comparable to the German Ö. The Å used to be written as a double A, and is pronounced somewhat like an English O (in open, for example).

Audited October 5, 2001