special character and symbol shortcuts

pak,

Welcome to Apple discussions.

I use a program called TextExpander, a very handy keyboard utility to automatically insert text strings or special characters.

-Dennis

There are three that I use specifically, Section, Pi, and Delta.

¶ Option + 7

§ Option + 6

π Option + p

∆ Option + j

pakalolo421,

for any symbols that you can't do with an option + ... shortcut, you should use the system-wide character palette. I'm a teacher, and use the character palette to put checkmarks in my student's essays. But there's every conceivable symbol in there, and the best is that you can minimize it to a very small window containing your favorites, which you keep open next to (or above) any open Pages window.
The character palette can be invoked from the Input menu, which you can put into your Apple menu bar from System Preferences -> International.

Robert

1) go to System preferences
2) select "International"
3) pick the tab "keyboard menu"
4) check "keyboard viewer"
Now you can launch the keyboard viewer from the menubar selecting the international item
the viewer shows your keyboard layout. When you press any alt ctrl and so on the character on the keyboard change to the available pressing that key

Cheers
Paolo

Open the Character Palette in OS X 10.4 or OS X 10.5, locate the first of the character codes you often use, open the Advanced menu at bottom left in the Character Palette, and select Add to Favourites.

Now choose the "by Favourites" view in the Character Palette, and doubleclick the character you want to insert in the current application window.

Best,

Henrik