Word has 12 special characters that are usually not found on a standard keyboard. These characters include the en dash, and the em dash.
The en dash (-) is about the size of the letter n and it used to connect things that are related by distance. The em dash is also of the letter n and is often used as a break in a sentence. There are also fifteen special formatting characters, like a non-breaking space.
As you may or may not know, these special characters do not appear on a standard keyboard. Now, the question becomes how do you add them to your document???
As luck would have it, there happen to be keyboard shortcuts for some of them, but not all! A few of them can even be added using AutoCorrect. But I think the best the best way to insert special characters into your document is right there on your Ribbon in the Insert tab!
To find these special characters and insert them into your document, you will need to be on the Insert tab.
On the far right side, you will find the Symbols section.
Click the Symbol button and you will see a window of symbols appear.
At the bottom of this window you will see the More Symbols option.
Click this to reveal the Symbol window, where you will see two tabs at the top: Symbols and Special Characters. If you click on the Special Characters tab, the Special Characters will appear.
From this window, you will now be able to select and insert all the special characters in Word. To insert any of these characters, click to select one, and then then simply click the Insert button at the lower right side. The special character you selected will now be inserted into y our document at the place of your insertion point.
Click the Close button once you are finished.
You should also notice that several of the special characters have keyboard shortcut sequences listed in the Shortcut key column to the right. Tee can also be used to insert specific special characters.
Below is a list of the special text characters:
- Em Dash – Used to mark a break in a sentence.
- En Dash – Used to mark ranges.
- Copyright: Used to indicate copyrighted work.
- Registered: Used to indicate a registered phrase or logo.
- Trademark: Used to indicate a phase or logo that is intended to be an identifier.
- Section: This is a section break symbol. It does not insert a section break.
- Paragraph: This is a paragraph symbol. It will not insert a new paragraph.
- Ellipsis: A sect of three dots used to indicate that text has been omitted.
- Single opening quote: The same as a quite being inserted from your keyboard.
- Single closing quote: The same as this quote being inserted from your keyboard.
- Double opening quote: The same as a quote being inserted from your keyboard.
- Double closing quote: The same as a quote being inserted from your keyboard.
There will be at east one more post regarding special characters so be on the lookout!