How to Type Symbols With Mozilla

Type symbols in Mozilla Firefox using the appropriate keystrokes.

Mozilla Firefox, a free Internet browser, is capable of rendering unicode text. Unicode characters are used to incorporate foreign language symbols, mathematical characters, emoticons and scientific notation into standard alphanumeric text sequences. If you're not familiar with special symbols, you might not know how to generate them in Firefox; however, the process is relatively straightforward.

Things You'll Need

• Keyboard with 10-key

Instructions

1. Click "Start," type "Character Map" into the search field and click "Character Map" from the list of results to open the application. This preinstalled Windows program displays a list of all available special symbols.

2. Scroll through the program until you find the special symbol you want to use.

3. Click on the symbol, then look in the lower right-hand corner to find the keystroke code. This code usually begins with the "Alt" key, and represents the keyboard command necessary for typing the symbol.

4. Open Mozilla Firefox and navigate to an email message, online post, search engine or other editable text field.

5. Type the keystroke from Step 3 on your keyboard. Enter the numeric parts of the code on the 10-key in sequence, but hold down all other keys. For example, a keystroke reading "Alt+0220" means you should hold down "Alt," then type "0220" on the NumPad. The special symbol appears within one to two seconds after typing the code in Mozilla Firefox.

References

• "Unicode Explained"; Jukka K. Korpela; 2006
• Microsoft Windows: Open Character Map

Resources

• Penn State University: Windows Alt Numeric Codes