Have you noticed that Unicode Hexadecimal Input does not work if the UCS/Unicode four-digit hexadecimal code point number begins and ends with a zero, and what is done about it?

JAGSiH wrote:

Some of you have probably noticed that Unicode Hexadecimal Input does not work if the UCS/Unicode four-digit hexadecimal code point number begins and ends with a zero.

Until pretty recently, I never knew that such an option exists. For many years, I made fun of Windows users because they were forced to use a similar method for any text that wasn't plain ASCII.

Do you have suggestions how this can be fixed?

Fixing is a tall order. This is a user-to-user support forum for Apple products. There is absolutely nothing we can do to "fix" any Apple bugs. All we can provide is insight and workarounds.

For insight, I suggest finding a workaround. This input option is an old-school, Mac, and keyboard-based input method. It won't work on iOS or a phone, so that means that you really shouldn't expect it to work on a modern Mac either. Anything that is Mac-specific has to be really, really, really important before Apple will make any change. Clearly this bug has not meet that criteria.

Instead, the workaround I recommend is to use the "Emoji and symbols" display, also known as "Character viewer".

This display has categories for both frequently used symbols and favourites. If there are specific characters you want to have available, add them to the favourites list.

The Character viewer has its own set of bugs and annoyances. My biggest complaint is that it is app-specific. If you open the character viewer for Safari, then it will not appear in a different app. You will have to open a different character viewer for the other app. And sometimes apps or web sites don't work with the character viewer. This site in particular doesn't. I need to remember to complain about that.

JAGSiH wrote:

Tom Gewecke, thanks for moral support and advice. For the time being, I wonder if there is anything better than the following.

Assume that I want to write “Valgerður Benediktsdóttir”. I write “Valger ur Benediktsd ttir” with the keyboard; I write “ó” with Option+00F3, and “ð” I write by opening Character Viewer and click on ð in the table, because ð has the affected code point number 00F0.

When I write in the International Phonetic alphabet, and often need MODIFIER LETTER TRIANGULAR COLON U+02D0, I simply keep that character copied and write Command+V when i need it.

That is probably best for you (unless you find text replacement better for the missing characters).

For me it would be better to use the ABC Extended keyboard layout. ó is option e then o, ð is option d. This keyboard also has a variety of iPA characters on Option Shift colon. If ː U+02d0 is missing I would customize the layout to add it. ABC extended should be able to do anything using Latin script, including transliterations of non-Latin scripts.

Have you considered using Text Replacements with the hex as the trigger? When you type 02d0 (without the option key) and space, you would get ː .

In case you are interested in trying the Text Replacement method, where you type the hex code and space and get the missing 0xx0 characters, you can get a .plist file with the ones you mentioned earlier here. I have not been able to test it myself yet. It is easy to customize it if necessary with a text editor.

Info on importing these is at

Back up and share text replacements on Mac - Apple Support

This bug in the Unicode Hex input source has been fixed in MacOS 13.3.

VikingOSX wrote:

This text editor will receive input from the character viewer by double-clicking the smaller, not the larger individual character (or emoji) symbol. Sometimes, more than one sequence of double-clicks are required to insert the character.

Not quite. I figured it out. It would be more correct to say "double-tapping". Then it makes sense.

You see, I'm a greybeard geezer. I display the old-school Character viewer and try to drag characters into the text editor. I even get a visual indicator during the drag that it's working, but it doesn't work, at least not for this site. It works for other sites however.

But your "double-tapping" method does work. I use the word "tap" instead of "click" because "click" is something that Mac user would do with their "mouse". We have touchscreens on our phones now, but not our Macs. But we do have trackpads where we "tap". If you are using the compact character viewer, you can insert with just a single "tap".

But that's for pointing that out. This has been an annoyance for some time. Now I can most more of my favourite emojis 😈

JAGSiH wrote:

I write 00E5 00E4 00F6 to get åäö. And I write 201C for “ LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK, because conventions for quotation marks are different in different languages I write. I use approximately 50 of the affected characters; here are some important ones:

It's really interesting that you make such extended use of this keyboard. While waiting for Apple to fix it, you might want to try the ABC Extended keyboard provided with MacOS. You can easily add characters to that (or any keyboard) if necessary with Ukelele. Plus the Apple Greek and Russian keyboards. If the usual shortcuts for switching keyboards are annoying, there are ways to simplify that too, like Kawa.

I gather you are not doing anything with Chinese or Japanese at this time? Using Unicode Hex for them would not be practical I think because of the number of characters.

Jan_Arvid_G wrote:

The problem is that there needs to be a space before 02D 0 (I did same trick with space). If i want to write a word in phonetic transcription, like this: [eːr], I must first write [e ː and then go back and change to [eː and then finish it so I get [eːr].

Regarding the Space Before problem: Is this also true for you in Word? It seems to work without that for me.

Regarding the Space After problem: In Word, try putting hyphen after the final 0 in the trigger (02d0-) and see if that removes the extra space (does for me).

JAGSiH wrote:

If more people start talking to Apple Inc, maybe we can get this fixed. I think the problem is that many people have not advanced past primary school literacy; they know the alphabet and a few common characters, and they think of other characters as “special characters”. They don’t understand that the whole world now has the same ”alphabet”, which is UCS/Unicode. ”Literacy for adults”, as I call it, is to memorise and use code point numbers for everything except most (not all) of the characters on an English keyboard. I am Swedish, but I don’t have åäö on the keyboard I use now, I write 00E5 00E4 00F6 to get åäö. And I write 201C for “ LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK, because conventions for quotation marks are different in different languages I write.

From the usage you describe, not only is it already fixed, it was never broken to begin with.

Apple has 3 different input methods for these kinds of characters. You are using only the most obscure one. Perhaps you learned that method on Windows years ago or something.

The primary input method is the keyboard. Apple sells keyboards with common characters in most local markets. See Magic Keyboard - Finnish/Swedish - Apple (UK)

Next, for anglophones who frequently type in foreign languages, there is the basic “dead key” system. You hold down the option key, type another character like `, e, i, or u to generate the diacritic, then type the character to modify. In some cases, you just need to hold down option and type one character. This is the oldest, most reliable, and probably fastest entry system. It pre-dates Mac OS X.

Next is the push-and-hold pop up from iOS. This is what most people use because they don’t know about the previous method and refuse to try anything new. This is also the buggiest system. There are many posts about this method suddenly not working after some update.

Last and least is the hex input method. It’s been broken for years. It isn’t going to be fixed. Sorry.

This text editor will receive input from the character viewer by double-clicking the smaller, not the larger individual character (or emoji) symbol. Sometimes, more than one sequence of double-clicks are required to insert the character.

See

Alternatives to the MacOS Unicode Hex Inp… - Apple Community

JAGSiH wrote:

Unicode Hexadecimal Input was working up to and including Monterey 12.3. Then Apple made some mistake, and Unicode Hex Input is still partly broken in Ventura 13.2.1.

Apple doesn't make mistakes, at least not in the way that you think. Apple writes code for iOS devices. Then Apple ports that code to the Mac. Sometimes, in the process, they break something that used to work on the Mac. Those things are rarely, if ever, fixed. Usually, they will leave it broken until they get around to porting some other component of iOS that will completely eliminate the old Mac user interface.

You wrote “Apple has 3 different input methods for these kinds of characters. You are using only the most obscure one. Perhaps you learned that method on Windows years ago or something.” Don’t make assumptions about people!

It was a logical assumption and nothing that you've said disproves it. It seems obvious that the Hex Input Method is a relict from the days when Apple was still running those Mac vs. PC commercials and trying to encourage Windows users to switch to the Mac.

But then, a funny thing happened. The iPhone took over the world and Apple dropped the Mac like a bad habit. They ported the press-and-hold method from the phone to the Mac and that is now the only method that most people know about.

You wrote, “The primary input method is the keyboard.” Yes, for most of the characters you learn in English primary school, the keyboard is good. For everything else, such as „German quotation marks‟, it is better to learn code point numbers, so you can be sure you get the right characters, and you get a large repertoire of characters.

The standard German keyboard seems to work well-enough.

You wrote, “Apple sells keyboards with common characters in most local markets. See Magic Keyboard - Finnish/Swedish - Apple (UK)” Why should I buy unnecessary things such as a special keyboard for Swedish and Finnish, which I often write?

It's not all about you. Apple designs hardware and software to meet the needs of its 1+ billion user base. People who are most likely to type in Finnish or Swedish will buy computers that already have the appropriate keyboards. Anyone else is going to have to use one of the other methods for typing foreign characters.

For that method to work, I would have to leave Unicode Hexadeximal Input, wouldn’t I? 

Sounds like you don't have any option.

And if I have left Unicode Hexadecimal Input, how can I quickly write “előre” with an Hungarian ő, when I want to write that in a mostly English text?

You can use the Character Viewer and setup a list of favourite Hungarian symbols. Then it's just a double-tap away.

I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I don’t think I would find it useful. And you make assumptions about your fellow human beings.

I don't find it useful either. But I have objective evidence that both of us are wrong. It is, by far, the most popular input method. So if I were to make an assumption about what my fellow human beings used to type non-ASCII characters, and I guessed push-and-hold, I would be right about 99.999992 % of the time. That's far better than my average.

You wrote, “Last and least is the hex input method. It’s been broken for years.” Broken since when? Please specify which year it broke, according to your information.

June 7, 2021

Unicode Hexadecimal Input is not “least”, it is best. Imagine that I meet a person with a Chinese name. I ask how to write it, and he says 5085 53EF 6069

I'm going to go ahead and assume that Chinese people are going to write their names in Chinese, not Unicode.

You wrote, “It isn’t going to be fixed. Sorry.” Why wouldn’t it be fixed? It must be some small error that made Unicode Hex Input partly non‑functional from one version of macOS the next version. I’m going to make them find the error and fix it.

I wish you the best of luck.

You'll be able to find out for certain when Apple releases macOS 14. If you are a member of any of Apple's super-sekret "Appleseed" programs, you download and install it shortly after June 5th, 2023. If you don't have those kinds of connections inside Apple, you'll have to pay $99 for the developer program. I've heard on the grapevine that Apple is finally shutting off access to beta software for people that aren't in those programs.

Otherwise, there will likely be a public beta release sometime later in the summer. The final release is typically in "the fall". But judging from similar issues in the past, it is more likely that Apple will re-do the entire keyboard user interface and get rid of the hex input method altogether.

Or maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe it will get fixed, and you can get back to typing those code points.

Jan_Arvid_G wrote:

it seems like people in power want everybody to only do a bit of simple press‑and‑hold to write “piñata” and “Löwenbräu”, as if they resent people like me, who write IPA in one sentence and runes in the next, and want to know exactly what we are writing.

I think Apple has probably become dubious of the utility of Unicode Hex. One of the reasons is that Unicode Hex as currently programmed using UTF-16 cannot easily deal with codes beyond 4 digits, which now includes over half of Unicode. For most emojis, less common Han characters, and various other scripts which need 5 digits, you have to type two obscure 4 digit codes in succession. For example Ace of Spades 1f0a1 requires you to type D83CDCA1 🂡 . Have you had to do any work with characters in that area? Dedicated keyboards or the Character Viewer seem like the only practical way to do so.