Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac
Ever wanted to type the copyright icon, or do an accent over an A without having to resort to some character palette? We have, and it takes time and is an effort. So we put together a series of help sheets that reference all of the characters that aren't listed on your keyboard, along with their shortcut keys to make your life easier.
Click on a preview image to view a full jpg.
Note: The "Alt" key on these sheets is the same as the "Option" key as some Mac users may put it. Why people were getting so upset about this I just don't know. Its not rocket science.
Get them all in one PDF [216kb]
There were so many, that to make the reference usable and readable we had to divide them into 3 sheets.
Last but not least, one more sheet.
We hope you find them useful.
Gernouille said,
August 1, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
It's not the same on a French Canadien QWERTY keyboard :(
Michael said,
August 2, 2007 @ 2:16 am
Kudos!
Finding these little glyphs is always a drag - even using pre-loaded Mac apps. We usually have to default to using Type -> Glyphs in InDesign.
Just saved us a ton of time from having to make these sheets ourselves -albeit, we would've taken a much more non-pretty route.
Vincent said,
August 2, 2007 @ 11:11 pm
Oh! not available for AZERTY keyboard version. :(
Julian Schrader said,
August 3, 2007 @ 11:29 am
[option] + [L] gives me an @ — I'm using a QWERTZ keyboard… (Germany)
Edgeoforever said,
August 5, 2007 @ 2:12 pm
Thanks so much for doing this. There's still a mysterious glyph I wasn't able to find on your chart . Scholastic made it a part of a user name/password to access a video we made on the Knight bus.
You have something very close on your glyph chart - ˜O (doesn't quite come on top for me). The one I need though, has the little squigly line ON BOTTOM! Can you help?
George said,
August 7, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
Should not that be DIPHTHONGS not dipthongs?
George
George said,
August 7, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
iN THE LAST SHEET YOU REFER TO EPSILON and the letter is actually the Greek capital Sigma .... please correct this - it is truly important
george
frank gamble said,
August 8, 2007 @ 6:11 am
very slick! thanks.
Guy said,
August 8, 2007 @ 8:16 pm
Thank you
Auron said,
August 13, 2007 @ 7:07 am
Thank you!
I have a mini binder dedicated to holding the reference pdf print outs I find on the web. This makes a great addition to my new mac laptop.
Keep up the great work!
-Auron
Julian Hebbrecht said,
August 18, 2007 @ 12:24 am
When I type these characters in an email message on a Mac and send the message to a Windows user or someone with a different language keyboard what will come up at the other end? The same character?? Or some thing toatally different??
So these characteres are probably only to be used when printing out your text - not for email.
Randall Greenwald said,
August 22, 2007 @ 5:24 pm
What about a broken pipe? I have a Filemaker Database that requires this for a password on a PC and I have not figured out how to enter it on the Mac.
Marco said,
August 22, 2007 @ 6:29 pm
Hi,
Thanks for this clutch reference, but there's a problem with the all-in-one PDF. Namely, a 404 problem...
JOnn said,
August 22, 2007 @ 6:34 pm
Apple is sooo cool and easy they do not ship a manual with their sweet computers. Amoongst these.
Aaron said,
August 22, 2007 @ 6:36 pm
Doesn't work on german Keyboards ... :(
Where is the "tilde"-sign? I'm still searching ...
Dr. Drang said,
August 22, 2007 @ 6:40 pm
The tradition on the Mac is to refer to the key as Option, not Alt.
And George is right, that's a capital sigma, not an epsilon. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma
MetaMommy said,
August 22, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
Love this list.
One thing I noticed, though. You say:
Shift + Alt + 2 = ™ (trademark)
and
Shift + 2 = € (the Euro symbol)
When I tried them, however, they were reversed.
Thanks!!
King Henry said,
August 22, 2007 @ 7:06 pm
Should not George (see posts from 8/7/07)
pull something from out his royal arse?
This is not a commercial product, and a Utility is intended to be something "of use."
Similarly, if a Comment is to be helpful, it might point out how to amend or fix the original in a constructive manner. Not by degrading the author of the utility's smarts.
It's a dandy, and a useful reference.
-the 8th
King Henry said,
August 22, 2007 @ 7:22 pm
Posting 2 negative comments within the space of as many minutes is also a no-no.
But...maybe a Greek with a dipthong kicked George's dog.
abhik said,
August 22, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
Thanks..
michael said,
August 22, 2007 @ 7:52 pm
I use the "character palette" in the international menu... but still haven't find the square root... as an architect is always usefull... and m2 is really not very aesthetical?
Eliakim said,
August 22, 2007 @ 7:56 pm
What's with the "alt" key?? I'm looking on my several different Macintosh computers and I have no "Alt" key at all. What I do have is an "Apple" or "Command" key, right next to the space-bar. If that's what you're talking about and this is something for Macintosh people, then this sheet should have the keyboard combinations that match the keyboards of "Macintosh keyboards"...
Soda Pop said,
August 22, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
"Um, my Mac doesn't have an ALT key...." not very helpful to some.
echo said,
August 22, 2007 @ 9:10 pm
Administrator
Thanks for your feedback. The reference is for English keyboards only. Naturally keyboards designed for other languages that use other sybols, for example, the umlaut in German, will not have the same key combinations.
As for the incorrect entries, these should be amended to the correct key combinations as soon as our designer returns from his holiday :)
jessemoya said,
August 22, 2007 @ 10:12 pm
Thanks so much!
One addition: the alt/option-shift-8 for the degrees symbol works, but so does option-0, which is shorter.
g said,
August 23, 2007 @ 2:09 am
option-shift-? = Spanish inverted question mark
Abbie said,
August 23, 2007 @ 3:09 am
Wow, this is awesome - thank you!
Karoly said,
August 23, 2007 @ 7:01 am
First, many thanks for this valuable resource. My mother tongue, Hungarian, has these "double-acute" wovels that are a variations of ó and ú. I'd be curious to see if those are also possible with some key combinations. I had a FF add-on, but it stopped working for some reason.
Matthew FEdder said,
August 23, 2007 @ 7:16 am
There is no such thing as an Alt key on a Mac! It is the Option key! Dude, get on the trolley! And you call yourself a Mac user.
Anyhow, what you really need to do is teach people how to use the Keyboard Viewer and Character Pallet. The easiest way to keep them handy is:
Go to System Preferences
Open the International preference pane
Check "Show input menu in menu bar"
This installs a new menu extra, with an option to Show Keyboard Viewer. Hold down Option or Option-Shift to see all the cool keys you have instant access to.
The Character Pallet gets you access to all of the tens of thousands (especially if you've installed lots of international fonts) of obscure symbols you probably had no idea you could easily use.
Matthew FEdder said,
August 23, 2007 @ 7:20 am
OK this blog is lame. It won't translate my returns to HTML newlines, and it filters out all my HTML tags. You deserve to have worthless, illegible comments on your site.
lfkrebs said,
August 23, 2007 @ 8:17 am
Thanks so much, this is very helpful. Here's an addition to the next revision I'd like to suggest: the Spanish inverted question mark, which should be Shift + Alt + /. Moreover, there is a typo on the last page: the florin sign is also used for pounds sterling. Instead, it should be this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_sign
Thanks again for this useful cheat sheet!
Jake said,
August 23, 2007 @ 12:36 pm
@Aaron: On a german keyboard, use alt-n to get a tilde-character.
James Turnbull said,
August 23, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
Good work! One small typo: the symbol for Pound Sterling (usually called just Pounds) is £ but in the sheets it's listed the same as Florin.
(There's no preview but hopefully above character entity will work for £)
Geoff said,
August 23, 2007 @ 3:40 pm
I don't see anything in there for » and « characters... I believe the keys are apple + shift + ] and apple + ] respectively.
echo said,
August 23, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
Administrator
@ Matthew FEdder: Is that better? :)
Aaron said,
August 23, 2007 @ 9:56 pm
This looks great.
I did notice that in the mathematical symbols you have the sigma ∑ listed as an epsilon E
Jason M said,
August 23, 2007 @ 10:28 pm
Alt key on a Mac...
Go visit the Apple site... see the enlarged image of the new Mac keyboard... there it is.
Find an archive of Mac keyboards the last few years Alt keys have appeared on certain keyboards made by apple.
Since the original iMac I've seen them...
So please don't whine.
Fish said,
August 24, 2007 @ 3:25 am
Thank you for generously making available something so useful to so many of us.
My apologies for the unpleasant remarks from a few, you do not deserve any of it.
Boatswilly said,
August 24, 2007 @ 3:48 am
Thank you so very much. This will help my writing of articles for the groups on the Internet.
Boatswilly said,
August 24, 2007 @ 3:49 am
In most cases, the Alt key is also the option key.
Robert M. said,
August 24, 2007 @ 4:30 am
This is a great tool. I have found one omission though (how does one find an omission?). I see a reference to an acute accent --´ (opt., shift, e) but not a double acute accent -- ˝ (opt., shift, g). Still, this will be very useful.
Chris said,
August 24, 2007 @ 4:41 am
Nice PDF.
alt == option-shift
Shift-alt is redundant. Alt without shift should be changed to option, if one wanted to be proper. Still a damn useful PDF.
Neil Anderson said,
August 24, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
System Preferences > International > Input Menu tab. Click check boxes for Character Palette and Keyboard Viewer. Select your keyboard layout from the countries shown. Click check box for "Show input menu in menu bar." Character Palette and Keyboard Viewer are now available under your country flag icon in your menu bar. Press Option or Option-Shift to see symbols. Click to insert in your document. Common fractions are available under Character Palette > Digits. And square root is found in Character Palette > Math. √ Along with many others. :)
chppio said,
August 24, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
This is very handy. Thanks for providing it!
Joe Clark said,
August 24, 2007 @ 7:54 pm
Your listing isn’t just for “English” keyboards, of which there are at least two that are distributed to at least six different countries. (Quick: What keyboard does New Zealand use? Ireland?)
The “Alt” key is the Option key. Alt was printed on keycaps for us in e.g. VirtualPC. The Macintosh keystroke is Option, not Alt.
It is superfluous to suggest, as this page does, that you need a cheat sheet to type accented letters. On the U.S. English keyboard (misleadingly named; see ¶1), acute, grave, circumflex, dieresis, and tilde all follow predictable patterns, namely (Shift-)Option-e ` i u n, respectively. Trivial to learn, easy to type (I’ve been doing it for over 20 years).
Massimo said,
August 25, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
Buddy, thank you.
I am afraid I fail to see the value of this, however.
Bringing up "Show Keyboard Viewer" from the keyboard menu allows all and sundry to find what they want.
If they want something real exotic, then only PopChar will do.
Thorir Bjornsson said,
August 26, 2007 @ 7:29 pm
Very useful. Being an Icelander, I don't see "thorn"!
Chiao
Cíntia said,
August 26, 2007 @ 11:51 pm
Hi,
Thanks a lot!
Just today i was trying to type some characters that don't appear on my mac keyboard.
Do you ever sleep?
Best regards my dear friend.
Michael said,
August 27, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
Very useful! I will link to you on my blog.
Ian said,
August 28, 2007 @ 2:05 pm
Matthew FEdder said,
August 23, 2007 @ 7:16 am
There is no such thing as an Alt key on a Mac! It is the Option key! Dude, get on the trolley! And you call yourself a Mac user.
So how come on my white wireless 3 year old mac keyboard, there is no option key, only an Alt key?
Next to the apple and noughts and crosses key...
Rick said,
August 28, 2007 @ 8:33 pm
Great tool! Thanks for posting it!
Fred Campbell said,
September 3, 2007 @ 10:06 am
That is great! Going to save me a load of time over the year. Thanks for all your hard work, which is going to make work a little easier.
The OS Quest Trail Log #5 at The OS Quest said,
September 4, 2007 @ 1:04 am
[...] brought a link to a series of cheat sheets for every character key on a [...]
MacPro.se - Hitta varenda tecken p din Mac said,
September 5, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
[...] med din mac? Genom olika tangentkombinationer finns det en uppsj av tecken och symboler. Kolla in denna sida dr en mycket bra PDF i mnet finns att ladda ner. Det r s mnga tecken att tcka s PDF:en r p [...]
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September 7, 2007 @ 1:09 am
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September 7, 2007 @ 7:40 am
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Gabriel said,
September 11, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
Actually most if not all of the characters generated by the Mac keyboard are ISO Latin-1 characters, and therefore a subset of Unicode, and therefore will display perfectly well on Windows and other systems--although they will need to be entered quite differently (there's nothing nearly as nice on the Win machine I use at work). So long as your email client is able to send non-ascii characters, you don't need to worry about these characters being borked by email or anything else.
instant-thinking.de » Blog Archiv » My del.icio.us bookmarks for August 28th said,
September 16, 2007 @ 10:00 am
[...] Reference for every Character Key on a Mac - [...]
» Handy Reference For Every Key On A Macintosh Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem (Joey) said,
September 19, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
[...] Liquidcity have published a very handy crib-sheet of every accented or special character available on an Apple Macintosh keyboard along with the key combinations required to use them. [...]
Allen Watson said,
September 21, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
If you enable the Character Palette (via the International System Prefs), you can find any character by its name just by typing the name at the bottom in the search box. E.g. "square root", "thorn", or "vertical" (to find variants of the "pipe" character).
A few people asked about using special characters in mail. It will work for sending to other Macs, but will get corrupted if sent to Windows, as Windows uses different character coding above the standard ASCII 128. It will also not display correctly on Windows if used in web pages. But for web pages, you can get a freeware program that will translate the special characters into HTML Entities, which display correctly on both operating systems.
Digital Video Confidential » Blog Archive » Mac Character Keys Reference file said,
September 22, 2007 @ 6:32 am
[...] find it. For a MUCH more productive way of finding all of the Character keys on a Mac keyboard, check out this handy little reference file pdf. It has EVERY possible combination you can think of. Thank you [...]
Yong Hwee said,
September 22, 2007 @ 9:22 am
This is great! Thanks!
Accented characters made easy « The Everyday Mac said,
September 25, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
[...] OS X , Quick Tips If you’ve ever had the need to type diphthongs, deltas or dotless i’s, Liquidicity has a nice printable PDF that will show you how. A quick scan of the chart and you can easily turn [...]
crasshopper said,
September 27, 2007 @ 4:39 pm
Thank you!
warmhart said,
September 27, 2007 @ 9:53 pm
Just have become the owner of an Intel iMac, and this helps a lot, thank you so much.
Now I'm still looking for the so often needed Home and End keys that go so nicely with the well known 102 keys keyboard.
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October 10, 2007 @ 12:14 am
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feed me apple snacks » Mac Character Keys said,
October 10, 2007 @ 4:31 am
[...] Mac character keys, a handy reference for all of the extra characters that keystrokes can generate on a mac. I was going to post something like this about a month ago, but their version is much much better (and more handy). « The Fastest Airport Transfers Are One Way » European iPhone to arrive in November [...]
Richard George said,
October 11, 2007 @ 5:38 pm
Thanks guys - this is a really useful resource and has just gained a proud place on my omnipresent USB key!
As for the alt-key kerfuffle - never expect any good deed to go unpunished :/ All my macs have it anyway.
Just don't hit the apple key instead, particularly when typing œ at the end of a huge great wiki edit like I did the other day!
Mac: Sonderzeichen einfügen mit der Zeichenpalette | QuarkStar said,
October 11, 2007 @ 10:42 pm
[...] wissen. Eine ausgezeichnete Dokumentation der Tastenkombinationen einer Mac Tastatur finden man auf GoSquared oder auf [...]
jr0 said,
October 15, 2007 @ 4:30 am
Thanks. I can use NeoOffice again, now that I can easily get an em dash out of it. (Why can't it replace -- with — anyway?)
Stasigr said,
October 29, 2007 @ 10:13 am
Hello, very nice site, keep up good job!
Admin good, very good.
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October 29, 2007 @ 4:45 pm
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Lifespion.com » Die Mac Shortcuts im Überblick said,
November 2, 2007 @ 1:47 am
[...] kann. Wer sich diese aber nicht alle merken kann oder will, dem helfen die PDF-Dateien von Go Squared weiter. Leider gelten diese nur für die englische Tastatur. Wer eine vergleichbare Übersicht [...]
Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac « Jason Wright said,
November 2, 2007 @ 9:51 am
[...] Click here! [...]
Nonym said,
November 5, 2007 @ 3:23 pm
Thanks, it's very useful!
People Over Process » links for 2007-11-08 said,
November 8, 2007 @ 8:19 am
[...] liquidicity » Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac (tags: keyboardshortcuts keys characters osx) [...]
meine links vom Samstag, November - 24 @ /faden said,
November 25, 2007 @ 3:00 am
[...] liquidicity » Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac - mac shortcuts, absolut jedes sonderzeichen [...]
liquidicity » Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac said,
December 16, 2007 @ 4:03 am
[...] liquidicity » Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac “Ever wanted to type the copyright icon, or do an accent over an A without having to resort to some character palette? We have, and it takes time and is an effort. So we put together a series of help sheets that reference all of the characters that aren’t listed on your keyboard, along with their shortcut keys to make your life easier.” [...]
G.Rafics said,
January 5, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
Thank you very much! These are a life saver.
"Real" Mac people know that the alt key and the option key are the same. If you use a Mac mini with a PC keyboard, this is a necessity. Those using KVM switches know this too. Apple has included both Alt and Option on the keyboard for over a decade. They even have a Help file for Windows switchers that identifies the keys.
Sorry that you were flamed, don't let that keep you from posting helpful articles. Ignore the trolls.
pressgang said,
January 29, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
Any idea what the key stroke combination for unicode 0142 is? I can get indesign to type the right glyph (and "l" with a bar through it at a slight slant) hence I've got the unicode ref. But I'm trying to type this in Quark.
Thanks
pressgang said,
January 29, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
Hey! I've just found a glyphs file in Quark!! Hooray.... But seriously, thanks for providing us with 'most' of the keystroke combinations that you'd ever need on a mac in the UK!!! Marvellous stuff.
EvilPlatypus said,
January 30, 2008 @ 10:32 pm
Thank you ever so much!
Apple had to choose the weirdest key combinations possible and it's really horrid to have to try several combinations just to type one letter; this will save me a ton of time!
Dave said,
February 21, 2008 @ 11:44 pm
Um.... No cheat sheets needed.Just go up to your menu bar and open the Keyboard Viewer.
"Huh?" you say?
Setting it up....
Goto System Preferences, International. Select the Input Menu tab. Check the checkbox labeled "Show Input Menu in Menu Bar". Now you should have a little flag on your menu bar.
Using. Go to the flag and select Show Keyboard Viewer. You will get a keyboard palette. Now press the option (alt) key and option-shft to see the alternate characters on the keyboard. You can even click the keyboard to enter those key strokes.
And for those of you who want even more, look at the Show Character Palette unfer the flag menu. Unicode? No problem. It's all in there.
Hope this helps.
Hans said,
February 29, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Thnx a mile. In Dutch we use a lot of ë, ï, ö which are a pain when using insert symbol. Now with alt U readily available.
some kind of blog » Blog Archive » Can’t find that symbol on the Mac keyboard? said,
March 2, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
[...] Well, should you ever be switching keyboards for your Mac computer, then you may be interested in the following. The following link is to an information sheet (that you may print out!!) which shows your for every symbol which key combination you need to produce it on your Mac keyboard. Or use it the other way round: which combination results in what symbol. In any way, it’s quite useful! Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac [...]
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March 13, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
[...] liquidicity » Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac List of keys to access complete alphabets (US keyboard only): all the combinated keys of the mac’s keyboard in a few PDF pages - a very useful reference, via Os X Hacker feed. (tags: keyboard mac ascii txt ***** pdf) [...]
Tastenkürzel auf dem Mac said,
April 9, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
[...] Sonderzeichen auf dem Mac [...]
Lance E Sloan said,
April 16, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
What about these on a U.S. English keyboard:
Shift-Option-; 2 => ƨ
Shift-Option-; 3 => ɛ
I don't know what they are for, but I just noticed them today.
JM Tech said,
May 6, 2008 @ 4:03 am
Weekly Tip: Mac OS X Character Sheets...
Earlier today, I was trying to figure out how to type the infinity sign in Mac OS X. I Googled for a bit, and I came across these handy character sheets. There are a total of three PDFs that outline some of the lesser-used and lesser-known characters a...