Character Viewer/Palette in Macintosh OS X

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Apple provides a Character Viewer (formerly the Character Palette) utility which allows users to look up and insert individual characters. Once it is installed, users can enter symbols for math, East Asian languages and other scripts.

This Page

1. Activate the Character Viewer/Palette
2. Insert Math and Punctuation Symbols
3. East Asian Characters
4. Other Scripts

Activate Character Viewer/Palette

The Character Palette can be used to insert characters into applications such as TextEdit; however not all characters can be inserted into all applications.

Version Notes

• The Character Viewer utiltiy (10.6, Snow Leopard) was formerly named the Character Palette from versions 10.2-10.5. The Unicode Character Input Palette was not available in 10.1.
• The utility may not work with certain older applications (e.g. Microsoft Office 2001 or very old versions of Adobe/Macromedia products).

How-To

1. Go to the Apple menu and open Systems Preferences.
2. Click the U.N. flag icon (either Text & Language in 10.6, Snow Leopard or International in earlier versions) on the first row of the Systems Preferences panel.
   Note: The panel may differ between different versions of the operating system.
   
   
   System Preferences, Version 10.6, Snow Leopard. Click "Language and Text".
   
   .
   System Preferences in earlier versions with "International" icon.
   
   
3. Click the Input Sources (OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard) or Input Menu tab and check off the option for the Character Palette then close the window.
   
   
   OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard. Check "Keyboard & Character Viewer" to activate.
   
   
   Earlier versions of OS X. Click "Character Palette" and "Keyboard Viewer" to activate.

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Insert Math and Punctuation Symbols

1. Within any application, choose Show Character Viewer (or Palette) from the International (flag icon) menu on the upper right.
2. In the new window, switch the View drop-down menu to Roman.
3. Select Math in the left menu to display available math symbols.
4. Highlight the symbol needed, then drag the symbol into the document or click Insert.
   
5. To insert other types of symbols such as Greek letters, click on the right hand menu to reveal the list of characters. Highlight and Insert as in Step #3.
6. To view addtional math symbols, switch the View menu in the upper left to Unicode (or All Characters in Leopard), then scroll to Mathematical Operators on the left.

Character Palette - Highlight character, then click Insert.

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East Asian Characters

1. Within any application, choose Show Character Viewer (or Palette) from the International (flag icon) menu on the upper right.
2. In the View menu in the upper left, choose Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese or Simplified Chinese to reveal character options
3. Click the By Radical tab at the top to select Chinese characters by shape
4. Click the By Category tab to select non-Chinese characters including katagana, hiragana and hangul.
5. Highlight the symbol needed, then click Insert.

Character Viewer showing Chinese options.

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Other Scripts

Current System

1. Within any application, choose Show Character Viewer (or Palette) from the International (flag icon) menu on the upper right.
2. In the View menu in the upper left, choose All Characters to reveal character options.
3. In the left menu, scroll down to the appropriate region for your target script. Click the arrow then select a script.
4. Highlight the symbol needed, then click Insert.

 

Character Viewer/Palette with scripts organized by region.

Panther (10.3) and Jaguar (10.2)

1. Open an application such as Office 2004, Text Edit or other application which supports Unicode input.
2. Choose Show Character Palette from the International (flag icon) menu on the upper right.
3. In the View menu in the upper left, choose Unicode or All to reveal character options.
4. In the left menu, scroll down to the script block desired.
5. Highlight the symbol needed, then click Insert.

 

Panther Character Palette (10.3)

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Last Modified: Wednesday, 11-May-2011 16:43:31 EDT