Symbols

You may use most Unicode and Emoji symbols in your texts. Let’s explore how to get them into your texts.

Copy and paste

One of the easiest ways is to copy and paste symbols that are used somewhere else. This Handbook as some useful ones here you can copy.

For Unicode subscripts and superscripts numbers, this Wikipedia page is very helpful.

And perhaps one of the easiest ways to find Unicode symbols is just to Google them!

Operating system character pickers

Your operating system probably has a special character/Emoji picker that you can use. Some even keep the ones you use most frequently on the first page.

Windows 10

Press WinKey + . or WinKey + ; to bring up the Emoji picker. Emojis? I’m looking for symbols. Well, if you scroll across to the right far enough, you’ll also find lots of symbols. Find out more here.

You can also use alt codes to type special characters. More details on this Microsoft support page.

Windows 7

You can use the Character Map program to search for symbols and characters. To launch it, press the Start menu (or press WinKey), type charmap in the search box, and press Enter.

You can then select the symbols you need and copy them to the clipboard, then paste them into your text. Here is a short guide with further details.

Stick to using the Arial font for compatibility.

Tip

The Character Map is still available in Windows 10 if you prefer the old way of finding symbols.

MacOS

Use either ^⌘Space or, from the menu bar, Edit → Emoji & Symbols to bring up MacOS’s Emoji and symbol picker. You can find symbols, if you scroll down far enough.

Learn more about how to use the picker with this guide.

ChromeOS

Here is a guide to entering symbols in ChromeOS and here is how to bring up an Emoji picker.

Emoji

We’ve mentioned it a few times already, but Emoji are sort of symbols too, but a bit more fun. Omni loves Emojis, but we have to be a bit careful when using them.

We don’t want to use the very latest ones, otherwise most people will only see an empty square instead of a gorgeous emoji.

As a rule of thumb, don’t use and emoji or Unicode characters that have been released in the last 4 years.

To check the age of an emoji, search for it on Emojipedia. You can either search by its name or the emoji itself (how cool 😎). This site also gives you a handy copy button for each emoji, in case any of the methods above fail.