10 Minute Guide to Word for Windows 95

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Symbols and Special Characters

In this lesson, you'll learn how to use symbols and special characters in your Word documents.

What are Symbols and Special Characters?

Symbols and special characters are not part of the standard character set. The Greek letter mu u and the copyright symbol (c) are examples. If it's not on your keyboard, Word can probably still display and insert it in your documents.


Windows 95: Which is Which? The distinction between a symbol and a special character is not clear. For example, the Greek mu is considered a symbol, whereas the copyright symbol is considered a special character! There are many more symbols than special characters.

Inserting a Symbol

To insert a symbol at the insertion point, follow these steps:

1. Select Insert Symbol to display the Symbol dialog box. If necessary, click the Symbols tab to display the symbols section, as shown in Figure 20.1.

2. Look through the grid of symbols for the one you want. To see an enlarged view of a symbol, click it.

3. To view other symbol sets, open the Font list and select the desired font.

Figure 20.1
The Symbol dialog box.

4. To insert the highlighted symbol, select Insert. To insert any symbol, double-click it.

5. Click the Cancel button to close the dialog box without inserting a symbol. Click Close to close the dialog box after you insert a symbol.

Inserting a Special Character

To insert a special character in your document at the location of the insertion point:

1. Select Insert Symbol to display the Symbol dialog box. If necessary, click the Special Characters tab to display the special characters list, as shown in Figure 20.2.

2. Look through the list of special characters for the one you want.

3. To insert the highlighted character, select Insert. To insert any character in the list, double-click it.

4. Click the Cancel button to close the dialog box without inserting a symbol. Click Close to close the dialog box after you insert a symbol.

Figure 20.2
The Special Characters list.

Assigning Shortcut Keys to Symbols

If you frequently use a symbol in your document, you may want to assign a shortcut key to it. Then you can insert it quickly by pressing that key combination. Most of the special characters already have shortcut keys assigned to them; you can view these key assignments in the Special Character list.


Timesaver Tip: More Shortcuts You can also use Word's AutoCorrect feature to quickly insert symbols and special characters. See Lesson 19 for more information.

To assign a shortcut key to a symbol:

1. Select Insert Symbol, then click the Symbols tab, to display the Symbols dialog box (as shown earlier in Figure 20.1).

2. Click the desired symbol. If necessary, first select the proper font from the Font list.

3. If the selected symbol already has a shortcut key assigned to it, the key description displays in the upper right corner of the dialog box.

4. Click the Shortcut Key button to display the Customize dialog box, which is shown in Figure 20.3.

5. Press Alt+N to move to the Press New Shortcut Key box.

6. Press the shortcut key combination that you want to assign. Its description is displayed in the Press New ShortCut Key box.

Figure 20.3
The Customize dialog box.

7. Under Currently Assigned To, Word displays the name of the symbol, macro, or command that the selected shortcut key is assigned to, or (unassigned) if it has no assignment.

8. If the shortcut key is unassigned, select Assign to assign it to the symbol. If it is already assigned, press BackSpace to delete the shortcut key display and return to step 5 to try another key combination.

9. When done, select Close to return to the Symbols dialog box.

The shortcut keys are really key combinations; you can select from the following (where key is a letter key, number key, function key, or cursor movement key):

Shift+key

Ctrl+key

Alt+key

Alt+Ctrl+key

Alt+Shift+key

Ctrl+Shift+key

Ctrl+Shift+Alt+key

Using Special Characters

Some of the special characters that Word offers may seem unfamiliar to you, but they can be quite useful in certain documents. The following lists brief descriptions of the less well-known ones.

En dash A dash that looks slightly longer than the standard dash made with the key above the "P" key on your keyboard. The en dash is properly used in combinations of figures and/or capital letters, as in "Please refer to part 1-A."

Em dash Slightly longer than an en dash, the em dash has a variety of purposes, the most common of which is to mark a sudden change of thought. For example, "She said--and no one dared disagree--that the meeting was over."

En space A space slightly longer than the standard space. This space is an en space.

Em space A space slightly longer than the en space. This space is an em space.

Non-breaking space A space that will not be broken at the end of the line. The words separated by a non-breaking space always stay on the same line.

Non-breaking hyphen Similar to a non-breaking space. That is to say, two words separated by a non-breaking hyphen will always stay on the same line.

Optional hyphen A hyphen that will not display unless the word it is in needs to be broken at the end of a line.

In this lesson, you learned how to use symbols and special characters in your Word documents. The next lesson covers proofing your document.


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