How to insert a symbol for 1/2 into a document

The answers for this topic are dated and not that helpful because things have changed ... at least when one gets to Big Sur.

First, on the Edit Menu there is no longer an entry for "Special Characters"

The entry is, "Emoji & Symbols"

Secondly, once, per the instruction to go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Text, etc., the symbol is not achieved by entering 1 / 2 and then pressing the space bar, but by entering 1 / 2 and then pressing RETURN.

Further, on MacOS Big Sur I find that the symbols for fractions do not appear under Math Symbols. You have to enter fraction in the search field (N.B. don't enter fractions because that won't work).

[ Suggestion to Apple: you might add 'Fractions' to the Character Viewer sidebar, an entry which I think would be at least as popular and sought-after as the existing 'Latin' entry there. ]

For Mac neophytes, like me, it isn't clear how one gets the symbol from the Emoji & Symbols window into the 'With' field in the Keyboard window. If you right-click on the symbol you want in the Character Viewer window, left--click on Copy Character Info, and then in the 'With' field in the Keyboard window paste the Character Info in, what you get is a string the beginning of which is the symbol you want, but which also includes the string representing how the symbol is encoded, which you don't want.

If you then click on the 'With' field you can edit out all its contents except the actual symbol which you want. [ Hint to Apple: most users don't care about how the symbol is encoded. ]

A most annoying aspect [ Apple: are you listening? ] of the operation of the Character Viewer when you also have the System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Text window open, is that when you click on the Keyboard window the Character Viewer window DISAPPEARS! Why? It's so frustrating. Apple: once the Character Viewer window is opened, why don't you let it remain open until the user explicitly closes it? I know the answer, but my response is, this is myopic system design.