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About this lesson
A necessary and interesting toolset if using creative accents, symbols, or displaying mathematical formulas.
Lesson versions
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Exercise files
Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ Word documents from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.
Symbols.docx57.4 KB Symbols - 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 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.
- 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.
- 00:05 Okay, symbols are a very important part of formal documents especially
- 00:09 when copyrights, trademarks or certain currencies are involved.
- 00:12 What we are gonna do is enter the copyright and
- 00:15 the trademark in the Japanese yen symbol right here.
- 00:17 First of all, place your insertion point where you want the symbol to land.
- 00:20 Second, these are on the Insert ribbon.
- 00:23 Way over here on the right-hand is a group called Symbols.
- 00:26 Now, if you need a mathematical equation symbol, you can scroll through here and
- 00:30 find one, or just a regular text symbol when you click this,
- 00:34 it shows you your most current symbols.
- 00:36 Sometimes these were bullets, bullets I'd recently used or
- 00:40 we can click the More symbols at the bottom and we can find any symbol we want.
- 00:44 Right now we're seeing windings on the screen.
- 00:46 Now notice in the background we have special characters, the special characters
- 00:50 is kind of the standard list regardless of what font style is chosen over here.
- 00:55 So when I click special characters here happens to be the copyright symbol.
- 00:59 So I'm gonna click that but
- 01:01 before I click it I want you to notice it says Alt+Ctrl+C.
- 01:04 It's showing me the keyboard command.
- 01:05 It's teaching me right now.
- 01:07 Take a look at the bottom, I also have a button that says Shortcut Key.
- 01:11 When I click that, notice this also says Alt+Ctrl+C.
- 01:15 Now I can design a new one if I want but I'm just gonna leave it alone.
- 01:19 I don't wanna write over an existing shortcut key.
- 01:22 I'll just use the one they have.
- 01:24 I have the option, I can hit Insert or I could cancel and press Alt+Ctrl+C.
- 01:28 I'm gonna go ahead and hit Insert.
- 01:29 Here we go.
- 01:30 And close and there is my copyright symbol.
- 01:33 All right, let's go ahead and put the trademark beside Coca-Cola.
- 01:36 Again, if it's not in my existing list of trademarks,
- 01:40 just to go more symbols, hit the background special characters, and
- 01:44 here it says the trademark, also Alt+Ctrl+T.
- 01:47 Okay, I'm going to hit that and close this.
- 01:50 In this case, I want the Japanese yen to show up.
- 01:53 So I'm gonna hit the Symbols again, Symbols, and More Symbols.
- 01:57 Now the Japanese yen isn't in the special characters.
- 02:00 It's not in the background, I actually have to find this one.
- 02:03 Well maybe, I don't know where it is.
- 02:06 I have no idea how to find it in here.
- 02:09 I would probably jump out onto Google and say, what's the keyboard command for
- 02:13 the Japanese yen?
- 02:15 Well, let me cheat and show you that I have it stored right here.
- 02:17 Notice this, I clicked on the yen, I could, of course, hit Insert.
- 02:21 But I wanna show you how to type the shortcut key, Alt+0165.
- 02:26 I'm gonna hit Cancel.
- 02:27 Out of my screen, I am going to hold down my Alt key, and
- 02:31 as I hold it down, I'm gonna press 0165.
- 02:35 And when I let go of the Alt, it pops in.
- 02:38 Kind of cool, all right.
- 02:39 So again, hold down Alt+0165, let go, and it pops in.
- 02:44 Now, where was that stored?
- 02:46 On my Symbols, in the More Symbols and right down here on any one of these.
- 02:52 If the shortcut key isn't there, it doesn't have one, but
- 02:55 it gives you a new character code and it tells me what font style it's in.
- 02:59 So that might be something that I tell someone else as well.
- 03:03 Go to the Wingdings set and type character 138.
- 03:06 It's often times people will call me on the phone and I'll just, okay here it is.
- 03:10 Here's that cool checkbox you want.
- 03:12 Go to Wingdings and type in code number 254 and you get that cool little checkbox.
- 03:16 So anyway, that's how you use symbols, and have fun with that.
- 03:19 They're really cool when you need them, thank you.
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