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About this lesson
Symbols are a necessary and interesting toolset if using creative accents, foreign characters, or displaying mathematical formulas.
Exercise files
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Symbols - Exercise .docx126.3 KB Symbols - Exercise Solution.docx
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Quick reference
Symbols
A necessary and interesting toolset if using creative accents, symbols, or displaying mathematical formulas.
When to use
Symbols are characters that are not part of the standard alphabet but would be placed within the text of a document. Use a symbol to put formal marks of ownership on a title, or a currency symbol beside a number.
Instructions
To begin, place the insertion point in your text where you want the symbol to appear.
- Click Insert and click Symbol
- Choose from the gallery or click
- Observe the two tabs at the top of the dialogue box:
- Scroll through the symbols to find the one you like, or click the “Special Characters” tab and find one that is more common:
- Notice the shortcut key list and make a note if you find one you will use often. It is more efficient to use a shortcut key than to search for a symbol in the extensive gallery.
Hints & tips
-
Remember the keyboard sequence when typing a symbol code, i.e. the Japanese Yen symbol ¥
hold Alt, type 0165, release Alt
- 00:04 It is sometimes really important to be able to add symbols to your documents,
- 00:07 like copyright symbols, trademark symbols, maybe currency symbols.
- 00:10 So we're going to do that in this exercise.
- 00:14 First of all, click where you want the symbol to land.
- 00:16 We're going to put the copyright symbol at this very spot.
- 00:20 On the Insert ribbon, on the far, far, far right-hand side,
- 00:23 we have two options under Symbols.
- 00:25 We have mathematical equations, and we have symbols.
- 00:31 When I hit the drop down arrow, it shows you the most recently used symbols.
- 00:33 My list will look different than yours because these are the same options used
- 00:38 with the bullets exercise.
- 00:40 Underneath, we have more symbols.
- 00:42 When this opens up, there's two tabs.
- 00:44 We have a Symbols tab and Special Characters.
- 00:46 The Symbols tab will show me every particular symbol available in
- 00:51 any font style actually on this computer.
- 00:55 I just like Wingdings, Wingdings is the one I go to the most, but
- 00:58 take a look at the Special Characters in the background.
- 01:01 You can just click on through until you find the one you want, and
- 01:04 there's a copyright.
- 01:06 Now, this is just the standard set that we're always looking for.
- 01:09 So we've got the copyright and then the trademark.
- 01:12 We'll go to that one next, but before I hit Insert,
- 01:14 check out the right hand column.
- 01:16 It's teaching us.
- 01:17 So if you're coming here a lot, maybe this would be something to memorize,
- 01:21 the Alt+Control+C.
- 01:23 Maybe the trademark, Alt+Control+T.
- 01:25 It is your personal preference, but I just want you to know it's there.
- 01:29 So I'm going to quickly memorize Alt-Control-C, Alt-Control-T.
- 01:33 I'm going to to hit Insert on this one to choose it, and Close it.
- 01:37 Because I hit it twice, it showed up twice, that's okay.
- 01:41 Okay, now I'm going to hit my space bar and press Alt+Ctrl+C,
- 01:46 and there it showed up.
- 01:48 Now, while I was in there, I quickly memorized Alt+Ctrl+T.
- 01:53 Alt+Ctrl+T, and the trademark showed up.
- 01:56 It even showed up as superscript above the line of text, very nice.
- 02:00 Alright, let's put in the yen, the Japanese yen symbol, this is harder.
- 02:05 Now, I did my research ahead of time, I actually jumped out online and
- 02:09 asked what is the code to type in the yen sign in Microsoft Word,
- 02:13 it is Alt+0165, but there's a sequence.
- 02:16 We hold down the Alt, we type the 0165, we release the Alt.
- 02:20 Okay, it's a sequence.
- 02:21 So I hold down Alt, type 0165, release Alt, there it is.
- 02:28 What I'm going to do is I'm going to highlight that, just select that in, and
- 02:32 show you where it's at.
- 02:33 Even though I have a screen print of where it's at,
- 02:36 I want to show you in the symbols.
- 02:37 I'm going to click on Symbol.
- 02:39 I'm going to go to More Symbols.
- 02:41 Since that one was highlighted, it shows me exactly where it's held.
- 02:46 Under the normal text font, which by the way,
- 02:49 happens to be the tippy top of the list, normal text fonts.
- 02:52 And it's highlighted right there, but if it wasn't right there,
- 02:56 I could have just scrolled down until I found it.
- 02:59 And trust me, many times I have just eyeballed this and
- 03:03 scrolled through in search of the one I wanted.
- 03:07 And then go ahead and hit Insert and then Close, all right?
- 03:10 And it showed up there again.
- 03:12 So just in case you need to know how to find a certain currency symbol,
- 03:16 jump out online and just ask.
- 03:18 And then quickly add it to your symbols so that under More Symbols,
- 03:22 it'll show up on your Recently used list and it'll be just handy and at the ready.
- 03:28 Okay, have fun with that and please use that.
- 03:30 It's really important to mark your copyrights and your trademarks.
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