AltKeyCodes

How to type symbols on a Mac

Macs do not use Alt codes. Alt codes are a Windows feature that reads the numeric

keypad, and a Mac keyboard does not send that sequence. On macOS you type symbols two

ways: a direct Option key shortcut for the symbols Apple mapped, or the

Character Viewer, which contains every character in Unicode and accepts a hex

codepoint. The shortcuts below assume a US keyboard layout; other layouts remap

several of them.

Option key shortcuts

Hold Option and press the key, adding Shift where shown.

Shortcut Symbol Name
⌥G © Copyright sign
⌥R ® Registered sign
⌥2 ™ Trademark sign
⌥8 • Bullet
⌥/ ÷ Division sign
⌥= ≠ Not equal to
⌥⇧= ± Plus-minus sign
⌥, ≤ Less than or equal to
⌥. ≥ Greater than or equal to
⌥V √ Square root
⌥P π Greek small letter pi
⌥Z Ω Greek capital letter omega
⌥D ∂ Partial differential
⌥F ƒ Latin small letter f with hook
⌥W ∑ N-ary summation
⌥- – En dash
⌥⇧- — Em dash
⌥; … Horizontal ellipsis
⌥1 ¡ Inverted exclamation mark
⌥⇧/ ¿ Inverted question mark
⌥L ¬ Not sign
⌥⇧2 € Euro sign
⌥3 £ Pound sign
⌥Y ¥ Yen sign
⌥4 ¢ Cent sign
⌥S ß Latin small letter sharp s
⌥O ø Latin small letter o with stroke
⌥' æ Latin small letter ae
⌥T † Dagger
⌥⇧R ‰ Per mille sign
⌥6 § Section sign
⌥7 Pilcrow sign
⌥5 fi Latin small ligature fi
⌥⇧5 fl Latin small ligature fl

The two ligature entries sit next to each other on the keyboard because they are the

same key with and without Shift. Where a shortcut produces something other than the

character listed here, your keyboard layout has remapped it; check the Character

Viewer, which is layout-independent.

Accented letters have their own pattern. The vowel keys are dead keys: press the

Option combination, release, then press the letter.

Shortcut Accent Example
` ⌥ `` grave ` ⌥ ` then e` gives è
⌥I circumflex ⌥I then e gives ê
⌥U diaeresis ⌥U then u gives ü
⌥N tilde ⌥N then n gives ñ

The Character Viewer works for every character

Anything Unicode contains is reachable here, including symbols with no Option

shortcut.

  1. 1. Press ⌃⌘Space (Control + Command + Space) to open the Character Viewer.
  2. 2. Use the search field to find the character by name. Searching check mark finds ✓

and snowflake finds ❄.

  1. 3. Click the character to insert it at the cursor.

Recent and favourite characters appear at the top of the panel, so a character you use

often is one click away after the first time.

Typing a character by hex codepoint

The Character Viewer accepts a raw code point. Open it with ⌃⌘Space, type the hex

value of the character into the search field, and it resolves directly. A search for

2713 returns ✓. This is the closest macOS equivalent of typing an Alt code, and it

works for every character in Unicode rather than only the ones Windows has a code for.

FAQ

Why does Option not start a character code the way Alt does?

Option is a composable modifier. macOS composes a fixed mapping of Option plus key to

character, and does not read a numeric sequence after the modifier key. The

equivalent input path is the hex field in the Character Viewer.

Do Option shortcuts work the same on a UK or German layout?

No. Several shortcuts are layout-specific, and on non-US layouts some Option

combinations produce accented letters instead of symbols. The Character Viewer is

layout-independent and always reliable.

How do I insert a symbol in Pages, Word or Google Docs on a Mac?

Use ⌃⌘Space in all of them. Apple's Character Viewer is available system-wide, so

the same shortcut works in any text field in any application.