How to Create a Shortcut of a Symbol in Word 2003

If you use a symbol frequently, assigning a keyboard shortcut to the symbol will eliminate the need to go through the dialogue box to locate and insert the symbol into your document. With just a couple of keystrokes, you can quickly insert a symbol into any Word document.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Microsoft Word 2003

1. Open Microsoft Word. The keyboard shortcut can be created from the document you want to insert a symbol into or the shortcut can be created from a new blank document.
2. Insert/Symbol Menu From an open existing document or from a new document, click on Insert in the top menu bar and then click on Symbol from the drop down menu.
3. Symbol/Font Choice From the Symbol dialogue box, on the Symbols tab, you can click on the down arrow of the Font box to select a different series of symbols. Wingdings contain a lot of symbols.
4. You can use the vertical grab bar to scroll through the grid display of symbols. When you find the symbol (or character) that you want, click on the symbol, and then click on the Shortcut Key button. On the Customize Keyboard dialogue box, you may see a shortcut already created for the symbol after the words “Currently assigned.” You can use that shortcut or create your own.
5. Customize Keyboard Box To create your own shortcut, in the “Press new shortcut key” box, enter your shortcut. To create the shortcut, hold down on the ALT key and the press up two letters or numbers, or one letter and one number. The shortcut will display with a + sign and a comma separating the letters or numbers. Example: ALT+9,9
6. Click the Assign button and then click the Close button. You can then use the shortcut to insert your symbol in any Word document. To use the shortcut, at the location in your document where you want the symbol to appear, repeat the keystrokes you used to create the symbol.