Find and copy any symbol. Learn alt codes for special characters.
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Every symbol on this site is a standard Unicode character, which means it will look and behave the same on any modern computer, phone, or website. The quickest way to use one is simply to click it here and paste it where you need it. If you need the same characters regularly, though, it is worth learning the shortcut system your operating system provides — each one works differently.
Hold Alt and type a number on the numeric keypad. The leading zero matters more than most people realise: Alt+0169 produces © using the Windows ANSI code page, while Alt+169 uses the older OEM code page and gives a different character entirely. Alt codes need a genuine numeric keypad — the number row will not work — so on a laptop you may need the embedded numpad via the Fn key. Windows also has two built-in pickers that avoid the problem completely: press Win + . for the emoji and symbol panel, or run charmap.exe for the full Character Map.
macOS has no alt codes. It uses the Option key instead — Option+G gives ©, Option+2 gives ™, and Option+R gives ®. For everything else, press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer, search for a character by name, and insert it directly.
On most Linux desktops, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type the Unicode hex codepoint, then press Enter — U+00A9 gives ©. Many distributions also support a Compose key for sequences such as Compose, o, c. In Microsoft Word on any platform, type a hex codepoint and press Alt+X to convert it in place, and press Alt+X just after a character to see its codepoint.
In HTML you can write named entities such as © or numeric references such as ©, both of which render as ©. These are useful when you want the source of a page to stay readable in plain ASCII, but the pasted character works equally well in modern HTML documents.
Alt codes are Windows keyboard shortcuts that produce special characters. You hold the Alt key and type a number sequence on the numeric keypad — for example Alt+0169 types the copyright symbol ©. They work in almost any Windows program that accepts text.
The leading zero selects a different character set, and it changes the result. Codes written with a leading zero, such as Alt+0169, use the Windows ANSI code page. Codes without one, such as Alt+169, use the older OEM code page and produce a completely different character. When a code does not give you what you expected, the leading zero is usually the reason.
Click any symbol to copy it to your clipboard, then paste it wherever you need with Ctrl+V on Windows or Cmd+V on Mac. This is the fastest method and works identically on every operating system, with no shortcuts to memorise.
Not directly. Alt codes require a real numeric keypad, and the number row along the top of the keyboard will not work. Many laptops provide an embedded numpad accessed with the Fn key, which you may need to enable with Num Lock first. If yours does not, use the Windows emoji picker (Win + period), Character Map, or simply copy the symbol from this page.
macOS does not use alt codes. It uses Option-key combinations instead — Option+G gives ©, Option+2 gives ™, and Option+R gives ®. For anything else, press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer, where you can search for a character by name and insert it directly.
On most Linux desktops you press Ctrl+Shift+U, type the Unicode hex codepoint, and press Enter or Space — U+00A9 produces ©. Many distributions also let you configure a Compose key, which builds characters from intuitive sequences such as Compose, o, c for the copyright symbol.
Yes. Type the Unicode hex codepoint and immediately press Alt+X, and Word converts it into the character in place. Typing 00A9 followed by Alt+X gives ©. Pressing Alt+X with the cursor just after a character reverses the process and shows you its codepoint.
Unicode is the universal standard that assigns every character a unique codepoint, such as U+00A9 for ©. Every method on this page — alt codes, Option keys, Character Viewer, copy and paste — produces the same underlying Unicode character, which is why the result looks and behaves identically across different computers and applications.
Anywhere text is accepted: documents, spreadsheets, email, social media, chat apps, code comments, and web pages. They are standard Unicode characters supported by all modern software, so they survive copying between programs and devices.
Common symbols such as ©, ™, €, and £ display reliably everywhere. Rarer characters depend on the reader having a font that includes them — if a font lacks a character, most systems substitute a similar font automatically, though some show a placeholder box. Widely used symbols are safe to use without worrying about this.
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