How to Make Special Text Symbols Copyright, Trademark, and Cents from your Keyboard

Here’s how to include the copyright symbol © or trademark ™ in an online product review or need to use the cents sign ¢ rather than typing out ‘cents’ or expressing money as dollars. I’ve included some other useful symbols as well.

Note that if you use Microsoft Word, there is a way to insert special characters and symbols in your document (Insert menu, Symbol will enable the character map). You can use the Windows Character Map application, but that might not work in a plain text situation. If you can’t change your font, then you need to be able to use the symbol easily.

Happily you can make a number of special symbols directly from your keyboard. Here is the method, and a few useful symbols you might want to learn.

Difficulty: Easy

Things You'll Need:
* Computer with a keyboard and number pad, Laptop users see notes below

NUMLOCK - To make the all these symbols, make sure your numlock key has enabled your numerical keypad. You'll probably see a light on your keyboard by an icon with a boxed number 1. If the light isn't lit, touch the Numlock key to light it.

Copyright symbol

© - Hold down the ALT key with your left hand and use your right hand to enter the numbers 0169 on the number pad. Release the Alt key and the symbol © will appear.

Trademark sign

™ - To make the trademark symbol, hold down the ALT key and enter 0153 on the number pad, releasing the Alt key to show the result.

Cents sign

¢ - To make the cents sign, hold down the ALT key and type the numbers 0162 on the keypad. When you release the alt key, the cent sign will appear.

Here is a list of useful symbols you can make with your numeric keypad. If you talk about international currency in your articles, you’ll find it handy to know Euro, Pound, and Yen.

Alt 0169 © (copyright)
Alt 0153 ™ (Trade Mark)
Alt 0174 ® (Registered)
Alt 0167 § (Section)
Alt 0178 ² (squared)
Alt 0162 ¢ (cents)
Alt 0128 € (Euro)
Alt 0163 £ (Pound)
Alt 0165 ¥ (Yen)
Alt 0161 ¡ (inverted exclamation)
Alt 0191 ¿ (inverted question mark)
Alt 0172 (boolean ‘not’)

Notes, Tips & Warnings

This does NOT work using the number keys in the top row of your keyboard. You must use the ten-key pad.

Laptop users may have to hold down the Fn key as well as the ALT key while typing the letters/numbers that make up the keypad area of your keyboard (on mine it is 7, 8, 9, U, I, O, J, K, L, M).

The trademark symbol sometimes doesn’t show up properly while the others do. I have no idea why.

☺ (Alt 1)