Special ascii characters useful to musicians & liturgists

[gwyn]

Rummaging through the Character Map utility on my Windows XP PC I note that there are keystroke codes available to create the less typical characters. For example,
[Alt] plus 0233 gives the character é
[Alt] 0232 gives us an è
{Alt] 0223 gives an ß

There's loads of these. You can access the Charapcte Map utility via Start / All Programs / Accessories / Character Map

I'm sure there's a way to assign keystrokes to the [Ctrl] key but I've yet to discover how this is achieved.

Such characters are indispensible to the liturgist, church musician. Can anyone give an insight into how such characters can be assigned without going through the "Start / All Programs / Accessories / Character Map / select character / copy character / paste character" sequence each time?

With hefty quantities of gratitude.
Thanks.
Gwyn.

[presbyter]

You could always convert to being a Macolyte. So much easier.

[Scholastica]

Isthis likely to be any quicker than
Insert / Symbol /

[musicus]

Isthis likely to be any quicker than
Insert / Symbol /

I'm sorry, Scholastica; what does your example do exactly?

[musicus]

Rummaging through the Character Map utility on my Windows XP PC I note that there are keystroke codes available to create the less typical characters. For example,
[Alt] plus 0233 gives the character é Mac: alt+e followed by e produces é
[Alt] 0232 gives us an è Mac: alt+` followed by e produces è
{Alt] 0223 gives an ß Mac: alt+s produces ß

I have added the Mac equivalents above in red.

Here are some more Mac ones:

alt+g produces © (copyright)
alt+u followed by u produces ü
alt+n followed by n produces ñ

There must be more, but I'd need to go and look them up.

[musicus]

Isthis likely to be any quicker than
Insert / Symbol /

Ah! This is in Word, I think. The keyboard shortcuts we are exemplifying here are produced by the operating system itself. And, yes, I think three keystrokes (max) is quicker than going to the Insert menu, selecting Symbol, and then choosing the desired item. However, each to their own*

* or YMMV in Internet-speak, for those who like to learn these things ('your mileage may vary')

[Southern Comfort]

[Alt] plus 0233 gives the character é
[Alt] 0232 gives us an è

You can save yourself one keystroke by using the original ASCII character set:
Alt+130 gives é
Alt+138 gives è

and the same is true for most accents: there's a three-digit Alt combo.

[Merseysider]

You can save yourself one keystroke by using the original ASCII character set:
Alt+130 gives é
Alt+138 gives è

That's four keystrokes!
The Mac version (alt+e+e) is three!

And don't forget those of us who still haven't quite worked out how to switch on a PC! (Dratted things!)

[Southern Comfort]

And while we're at it:

Alt+0169 gives ©
Alt+0173 gives a hyphen (very useful for Finale users)
Alt +196 gives an em-dash on this forum ─ but in other programmes you need Alt+0150
Alt+0160 gives a hard space (Finale again)
Alt+0189 gives ½

Well, you get the idea. There are lists available online of all the Alt+three digits (ASCII character set) combinations and Alt+four digits (extended ASCII set) combinations. Very useful. If you can't find them by Google searching, I can provide the references.

About the only character I've not found is A with a macron over it (a horizontal line) ─ yes it does exist, but it doesn't work in all software.

[FrGareth]

Alternatively, copy and paste the line below into a document, save on your desktop and you can open it and copy and paste your desired symbol into your text whenever you wish.

I would have attached a suitable doc but this board won't let me attach a "doc", an "rtf" or a "pdf"!

© ♝ ℣ ℟ † ℗ ☦ ☧ ☨ ☩ ✝ ✞ ✟ ✠ ✢ ✣ ✤ ✥ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ ♭ ♮ ♯

If the line above doesn't look like useful symbols, you probably don't have a Unicode font on your computer

FrGareth

[Southern Comfort]

Alas, it's not useful, Gareth.

Most of us are not Macolytes (thank goodness! ─ but let's not get into that again).

Unicode is not where most people are, either. TrueType or OpenFont are more likely.

SC

[Merseysider]

Most of us are not Macolytes

But we still love you and will keep you in our prayers until one day you are brought out of the darkness into Mac's glorious light.

[nazard]

While you rich men argue, I stick to Linux myself. Its free, its happy with hardware a decade or more old, and it runs like the proverbial fimus off a pala.

My method of getting special symbols in works most of the time on any system. Just type the word you want, as close as you can get it in the standard roman alphabet, into google's search box and hit return. Google replies "Did you mean" and the correct spelling of your word. Cut this and paste it into the document you are editing.

[gwyn]

Well done Fr. Gareth. They're all visible and usable on my Windows machine.

Btw. Was that you in front of me in the queue in Staples the other day?

[mcb]

Most of us are not Macolytes.... Unicode is not where most people are, either.

To be fair, I think Fr Gareth's solution is for Windows users (at least those who have joined the 21st century by using Unicode ). Mac users can just add the characters to their 'favourites' in the character palette - then you click on the character and it gets typed into the current application. Simples! (And yet more proof, if it were needed, of the supremacy of... continued p.92)