Degree Symbol

Oh Jesus, nobody I know ever noticed any difference. I guess I was off by a couple of º's.

You can insert the degree symbol just the same way you do in pages. Go to edit, special characters, then scroll down to line 2120. The degree symbol is the first symbol on the left.

You can type Option-Shift-8 to get a degree symbol ( ° ) in any Mac app.

Yeah, option-shift-8 is a much faster way to get to it.

I always use option-0 º, even faster.

I always use option-0 º, even faster.

That's not actually the degree symbol, even though it may look like it. It's the "masculine ordinal indicator" (Unicode 00BA) used in Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish with numbers (e.g. 2º Parte -- Second Part).

nobody I know ever noticed any difference.

You would have to magnify the text a great deal to notice it with most fonts:



The main practical consequence of using the wrong one is that someone searching for the actual degree symbol in the text would not find it.

Actually, option-0 and option-shift-0 have different results depending on the font. For example, using American Typewriter, option-0 creates a small "o" with a small underline below it (definitely not a degree symbol) and option-0 displays a comma. In case you think that's just American Typewriter, Helvetica places a comma when typing option-0, too.

Actually, option-0 and option-shift-0 have different results depending on the font.

Option - shift - zero always produces "single low-9 quotation mark," U+201A, used for quotes in some languages (though it looks just like a comma). Option - Shift - 8 always produces "degree sign," U+00B0. Option - zero always produces "masculine ordinal indicator," U+00BA. The masculine ordinal indicator has two equivalent glyph forms, one with a line under the little o and one without. Some fonts have one and some have the other, but it is the same character. Of course you are right that the one with line under could not be confused with the degree sign.