To open the Character Viewer, click the Edit option in the menu bar and select Edit → Special Characters… as shown below. Instead of using using a key combination, you can simply double-click the special character you want to enter. allowing you to view the characters before inserting them. The Character Viewer displays special characters in a window. If you need to look up a special character, you can try the next method. While you may be able to remember a few common shortcuts, it can be difficult to remember them all. While Option key shortcuts are the easiest way to enter special characters in Mac OS X, they also require you to know what key combinations are used for specific characters. For example, pressing Option+E, followed by the 'A' key will enter the á character.īelow are some examples of other common Option key shortcuts: To enter a vowel with an accent, you can press Option+E, then press the vowel you want to enter. You can enter an upside-down question mark (¿) by pressing Option+Shift+/. For example, you can enter a copyright symbol (©) by pressing Option+G. To use an Option key shortcut, hold the Option key on your keyboard, then type the key corresponding to your desired special character, then release the Option key.

Option Key ShortcutsĪn option key shortcut is a key combination that can be used to quickly insert a special character while you are typing. You can then click inside a document or an online form and press Command+V to paste the symbol where the flashing cursor is located.

For example, if you see a heart symbol on a webpage that you want to use, you can select the symbol by double-clicking it, then copy it to the clipboard by pressing Command+C. Sometimes the easiest way to enter a special character is to simply copy and paste it. In this article, we'll cover four different ways to insert special characters in Mac OS X. These are called 'special characters,' which you can insert using one of several different techniques. When you're browsing the web, reading an email, or viewing a document, you may come across characters that don't appear on your keyboard.

Option key in mac