Typing strange letters¿ w/o numpad?

Question

How do i type ♣ (alt+5) and ♥ (alt+259) and other characters like it on a keyboard w/o a numberpad? using the numbers 1-9-0 doesnt activate those characters. Note i want to TYPE and not use that windows program to select/copy/paste

Solution 1

For some programs that use a "Rich Edit Control" (I just tested with Word 2007 and it works), this method should work, as described here:

There is a fifth related method, but it does not actually use the numeric keypad:

HexadecimalUnicode, ALT+X

Enter a Unicode value in hexadecimal (EG: Enter 00A5 for U+00A5), then press ALT+X or ALT+SHIFT+CTRL+F12 to yield ¥. Note that this shortcut does not actually use the numeric keypad. Later versions of Word or Wordpad, or anything that uses a "Rich Edit Control". (FYI: Typing ALT+SHIFT+x converts the Unicode character preceding the insertion point to the corresponding Unicode hexadecimal value.)

• EG: 100, ALT+X yields Ā in Wordpad but does nothing in Notepad.
• Dr. International:
  • 'This method should work in both Wordpad on Windows XP SP1 and Word 2002 and Word 2003, but it does not work in Notepad.'

Solution 2

See this post: Three ways to enter Unicode characters in Windows

The three methods are

1. Using Alt-X in Microsoft Word.
2. Changing a registry setting to enable Alt-+ to work with more applications.
3. Using the UnicodeInput application.

Solution 3

Unicode DB IME for Windows is an amazing solution!

Advantages over UnicodeInput are text based character name search with autocomplete, and that there is no need for a numPad.

The name search is a major innovation over UnicodeInput and I cannot believe that the 2020 standard MS solutions for special characters are so clunky when this exists.

It installs as an input method, where the base language is American English.
Then simply type [ctrl shift u] for unicode input, and add ['] for name search.
More details and examples available in the documentation.

Comments

[Admin]

consider adding the windows tag, because all of this is windows specific

[Admin]

Windows tag added.

[Admin]

Does this answer your question? How do you type Unicode characters using hexadecimal codes?

[Admin]

See also Does Unicode have a unified way to input all diacritics, especially in MS Word 2010?, Insert Unicode characters via the keyboard and How do I type the infinity character in a web browser?

[Bort]

The question specified "typing" the character and not using a program to paste it.

[Todd Partridge]

I agree. Thank you for pointing that out to me, I consider the intent helpful. I put this answer down as an alternate that readers may consider doable.