How to generate obelus (aka division symbol) in Windows?

Question

In Windows how do you generate '÷' ?

In Obelus Wiki, it is written:

In Microsoft Windows, the obelus is produced with Alt+0247 on the number pad or by pressing Alt Gr+⇧ Shift++ when an appropriate keyboard layout is in use

But I tried and it did not work (Windows 8.1). My keyboard layout is US QWERTY .

---

So, how do you generate this symbol ?

Solution

The basic US keyboard layout does not contain this key mapping:

There is, however, the so-called “United States-International” layout, which includes a tremendous amount of helpful additions:

(Both images are from Wikipedia’s QWERTY page.)

The characters marked red in the image above are changed to combining characters. This means they will not show up immediately, because they’re waiting for the next keystroke and combine with the entered character, if possible. This means ~o will produce õ. "o will produce ö. If you use Space or any other character that cannot be combined, they will show up like before.

To change to this layout, go to Control Panel → Clock, Language, and Region → Language → “English (United States)” Options → Add an input method → Search (upper right) for “International” → (Optionally remove the regular US layout) → Save

Seeing how the aforementioned behavior with combining characters is a relatively radical change, you might want to keep your regular layout, though.

You can switch between layouts (and languages) with WinSpace (Keep holding Win and press Space multiple times, like AltTab).

You can also switch backwards (in case you have many entries) with WinShiftSpace

Comments

[fixer1234]

+1 for knowing the word "obelus" and using it in a sentence.

[fixer1234]

If you can't generate it from your keyboard, can you copy/paste from the character map?

[MAKZ]

@fixer1234 where is the +1 man? it is still 0 . btw, i can, but that is cumbersome. There should be a shortcut

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

Ensure Numlock is on, then hold Alt and type 0247 on the keypad (not the numbers above the letters), then release alt... ÷ Does that work?

[MAKZ]

@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 yeah... thank you (I had to copy-paste your name!) . I had to connect my external keyboard to get numpad.

[Prasanna]

@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 - Please post this as an answer if you can

[Haplo]

If your keyboard doesn't have numeric keys, it must have function keys. Check this out. In case you didn't know about this.