Keyboard symbols, their names and shortcuts

On a Mac with the US or ABC layout, hold Option, sometimes with Shift, and press a key. On Windows, hold Alt and type the code on the number pad with Num Lock on; the number row above the letters won’t work. Codes that start with 0 come from the Windows-1252 character set, and the shorter ones from the character set of the original IBM PC, which is why Alt+0176 and Alt+248 both give you °.

No number pad? Press the Windows key and the full stop together (Win+.) to open the emoji panel, then switch to its Ω tab for symbols, or open Character Map. On a Mac, Control+Command+Space opens the Character Viewer, where you can search for a symbol by name.

• iPhone: tap 123, then #+= for the second page. It holds [ ] { } # % ^ * + = _ \ | ~ < > along with € £ ¥ and •.
• iPhone: press and hold a key to see its relatives. The hyphen offers en and em dashes and a bullet, 0 offers °, $ offers other currencies, and ? and ! offer ¿ and ¡.
• Gboard on Android: tap ?123, then =\< for a second page of symbols, which includes © ® ™ and °.
• Both systems: the emoji keyboard has ©, ® and ™ among its symbols, but drawn as emoji, so they may look heavier than your text.

Tip: Save anything you paste often as a shortcut. With Text Replacement on an iPhone, a code such as cpy can type © and your shop’s name in one go.

• Usernames: only the full stop and the underscore. Instagram rejects every other symbol on the keyboard.
• Hashtags: # starts one and it runs until a space or a punctuation mark, so #summer-sale links only #summer. Underscores are fine, so #summer_sale works.
• Mentions: @ followed by a username tags that account.
• Bios, captions, comments and DMs: every symbol on this page is allowed. Instagram doesn’t turn *asterisks* or _underscores_ into bold or italics, so they show exactly as typed.

Tip: Screen readers name many symbols aloud, so “Nurse | Baker” can be read with the words “vertical bar” in the middle. A comma or a line break makes the same split without the extra words.

• ° and º: the degree sign (Option+Shift+8) is a small raised circle, while º is the masculine ordinal used in Spanish and Portuguese, as in 1º (Option+0). Use ° for temperatures and angles.
• Hyphen, en dash and minus: the hyphen joins words, the en dash marks ranges such as 9–5, and the true minus sign − belongs in sums. A hyphen is fine for a minus in a caption.
• x and ×: a letter x does the job in casual writing, but × sits higher, on the middle of the line, and is the real multiplication sign.
• µ and μ: the micro sign from Option+M looks identical to the Greek letter mu, but they are separate characters, so a search for one may miss the other.
• Alt-code extras: ☺ ♂ ♀ ‼ and ↔ also exist as emoji, so some apps draw them in colour even though you typed plain text.