I work part-time as an editor, which means I spend a lot of my time replacing hyphens with em dashes. So, when I bought my Chromebook, my life became a little different.
The normal way I’ve always typed em dashes is to press alt and type 0151 on the numerical keypad. Only thing is that Chromebooks don’t have numerical keypads. In fact, most laptops don’t anymore.
In a pinch, you can google the special character and copy and paste the special characters in. But no one’s got time for that.
In Word, you can use special characters from the Insert ribbon.
But Chromebooks don’t have Word.
You get the idea. For those of you who’ve skimmed all this and are just looking for the solution, here it is:
How to Type Special Characters with a Chromebook: Unicode Input
On a Chromebook, when you press CTRL+SHIFT+U in an input field, you’ll get a little underlined “u” on your screen. Look:
Now, type in the unicode entry for the special character you want. An em dash is “2014.”
Hit enter and voila, em dash: —
2014 for an em dash is easy to remember, because 2014 is the year that St. Vincent released her self-titled album St. Vincent. But for all other unicode characters, you should check out this handy reference:
Wikipedia also has a good break down of all the unicode characters.
That table is massive, of course. So here’s a handy reference for the ones you’d most frequently use on your Chromebook.
Typing Subscript and Superscript in Unicode
The unicode entries for subscript are U+208X, where X is the number you want in subscript. For example, H₂0 uses CTRL+SHIFT+U and then 2082.
The unicode entries for superscript are CTRL+SHIFT+U and then 207x, where X is the number you want in superscript. For example, 10⁷ uses CTRL+SHIFT+U and then 2077.
That is, except for 1, 2, and 3, which are CTRL+SHIFT+U and then 00B9, CTRL+SHIFT+U and then 00B2 and CTRL+SHIFT+U and then 00B3 respectively.
Typing Punctuation in Unicode
Use the handy table below for your dashes and other esoteric punctuation.
| CTRL + SHIFT + U and … | Character | Name |
| 2013 | – | En dash |
| 2014 | — | Em dash |
| 2015 | ― | Horizontal bar |
| 2017 | ‗ | Double low line |
| 2018 | ‘ | Left single quotation mark |
| 2019 | ’ | Right single quotation mark |
| 201A | ‚ | Single low-9 quotation
mark |
| 201B | ‛ | Single high-reversed-9 quotation mark |
| 201C | “ | Left double quotation mark |
| 201D | ” | Right double quotation mark |
| 201E | „ | Double low-9 quotation mark |
| 2020 | † | Dagger |
| 2021 | ‡ | Double dagger |
| 2022 | • | Bullet |
| 2026 | … | Horizontal ellipsis |
| 2030 | ‰ | Per mille sign |
| 2032 | ′ | Prime |
| 2033 | ″ | Double prime |
| 2039 | ‹ | Single left-pointing angle quotation mark |
| 203A | › | Single right-pointing angle quotation mark |
| 203C | ‼ | Double exclamation mark |
| 203E | ‾ | Overline |
| 2044 | ⁄ | Fraction slash |
| 204A | ⁊ | Tironian et sign |
Typing Symbols in Unicode
| CTRL + SHIFT + U and … | Character | Name |
| 00A0 | Non-breaking space | |
| 00A1 | ¡ | Inverted Exclamation Mark |
| 00A2 | ¢ | Cent sign |
| 00A3 | £ | Pound sign |
| 00A4 | ¤ | Currency sign |
| 00A5 | ¥ | Yen sign |
| 00A6 | ¦ | Broken bar |
| 00A7 | § | Section sign |
| 00A8 | ¨ | Diaeresis (Umlaut) |
| 00A9 | © | Copyright sign |
| 00AB | « | Left-pointing double angle quotation mark |
| 00AC | ¬ | Not sign |
| 00AD | Soft hyphen | |
| 00AE | ® | Registered sign |
| 00AF | ¯ | Macron |
| 00B0 | ° | Degree symbol |
| 00B1 | ± | Plus-minus sign |
| 00B2 | ² | Superscript two |
| 00B3 | ³ | Superscript three |
| 00B4 | ´ | Acute accent |
| 00B5 | µ | Micro sign |
| 00B6 | ¶ | Pilcrow sign |
| 00B7 | · | Middle dot |
| 00B8 | ¸ | Cedilla |
| 00B9 | ¹ | Superscript one |
| 00BA | º | Masculine ordinal indicator |
| 00BB | » | Right-pointing double angle quotation mark |
| 00BC | ¼ | Vulgar fraction one quarter |
| 00BD | ½ | Vulgar fraction one half |
| 00D7 | × | Multiplication sign |
| 00F7 | ÷ | Division sign |
| 00BA | º | Masculine ordinal indicator |
| 00BB | » | Right-pointing double angle quotation mark |
| 00BC | ¼ | Vulgar fraction one quarter |
| 00BD | ½ | Vulgar fraction one half |
| 00BE | ¾ | Vulgar fraction three quarters |
| 00BF | ¿ | Inverted Question Mark |
Typing Accents in Unicode
| CTRL + SHIFT + U and… | Character | Name |
| 00C0 | À | Latin Capital Letter A with grave |
| 00C1 | Á | Latin Capital letter A with acute |
| 00C2 | Â | Latin Capital letter A with circumflex |
| 00C3 | Ã | Latin Capital letter A with tilde |
| 00C4 | Ä | Latin Capital letter A with diaeresis |
| 00C5 | Å | Latin Capital letter A with ring above |
| 00C6 | Æ | Latin Capital letter Æ |
| 00C7 | Ç | Latin Capital letter C with cedilla |
| 00C8 | È | Latin Capital letter E with grave |
| 00C9 | É | Latin Capital letter E with acute |
| 00CA | Ê | Latin Capital letter E with circumflex |
| 00CB | Ë | Latin Capital letter E with diaeresis |
| 00CC | Ì | Latin Capital letter I with grave |
| 00CD | Í | Latin Capital letter I with acute |
| 00CE | Î | Latin Capital letter I with circumflex |
| 00CF | Ï | Latin Capital letter I with diaeresis |
| 00D0 | Ð | Latin Capital letter Eth |
| 00D1 | Ñ | Latin Capital letter N with tilde |
| 00D2 | Ò | Latin Capital letter O with grave |
| 00D3 | Ó | Latin Capital letter O with acute |
| 00D4 | Ô | Latin Capital letter O with circumflex |
| 00D5 | Õ | Latin Capital letter O with tilde |
| 00D6 | Ö | Latin Capital letter O with diaeresis |
| 00D8 | Ø | Latin Capital letter O with stroke |
| 00D9 | Ù | Latin Capital letter U with grave |
| 00DA | Ú | Latin Capital letter U with acute |
| 00DB | Û | Latin Capital Letter U with circumflex |
| 00DC | Ü | Latin Capital Letter U with diaeresis |
| 00DD | Ý | Latin Capital Letter Y with acute |
| 00DE | Þ | Latin Capital Letter Thorn |
| 00DF | ß | Latin Small Letter sharp S |
| 00E0 | à | Latin Small Letter A with grave |
| 00E1 | á | Latin Small Letter A with acute |
| 00E2 | â | Latin Small Letter A with circumflex |
| 00E3 | ã | Latin Small Letter A with tilde |
| 00E4 | ä | Latin Small Letter A with diaeresis |
| 00E5 | å | Latin Small Letter A with ring above |
| 00E6 | æ | Latin Small Letter Æ |
| 00E7 | ç | Latin Small Letter C with cedilla |
| 00E8 | è | Latin Small Letter E with grave |
| 00E9 | é | Latin Small Letter E with acute |
| 00EA | ê | Latin Small Letter E with circumflex |
| 00EB | ë | Latin Small Letter E with diaeresis |
| 00EC | ì | Latin Small Letter I with grave |
| 00ED | í | Latin Small Letter I with acute |
| 00EE | î | Latin Small Letter I with circumflex |
| 00EF | ï | Latin Small Letter I with diaeresis |
| 00F0 | ð | Latin Small Letter Eth |
| 00F1 | ñ | Latin Small Letter N with tilde |
| 00F2 | ò | Latin Small Letter O with grave |
| 00F3 | ó | Latin Small Letter O with acute |
| 00F4 | ô | Latin Small Letter O with circumflex |
| 00F5 | õ | Latin Small Letter O with tilde |
| 00F6 | ö | Latin Small Letter O with diaeresis |
| 00F8 | ø | Latin Small Letter O with stroke |
| 00F9 | ù | Latin Small Letter U with grave |
| 00FA | ú | Latin Small Letter U with acute |
| 00FB | û | Latin Small Letter U with circumflex |
| 00FC | ü | Latin Small Letter U with diaeresis |
| 00FD | ý | Latin Small Letter Y with acute |
| 00FE | þ | Latin Small Letter Thorn |
| 00FF | ÿ | Latin Small Letter Y with diaeresis |
Thanks Jack, that’s useful. Also—what’s that editor you’re using in the screenshot?
Best
How would you type + or – in Sub/Superscript. Other than that, you mate, have solved me sooo many problems so thank you.
You can do ub0 space and then you get the degree symbol.
there is chinese in unicode, too. this is CTRL+SHIFT+U (8888)= 袈
Wow! Why are computer makers still making this so difficult? The world is getting smaller, more people speak multiple languages than don’t in the world, yet computer makers like to pretend no one speaks anything but Enlgish. SMH
Does anyone know the code for a checkbox (tick) trying to fill out an online form is driving me crazy.
Thank you.
How do you make an ¨a¨ with an over line; the long A symbol????
@Andra Try control-shift-U and 0100 or 0101 (Wikipedia—macron (diacritic)). Cheers