How to Make IM Chat Emoticon Faces with Your Keyboard

Instant messaging is a fast and easy way to virtually chat with anyone miles away. One of the fun elements of chat is making emoticons, or virtual facial expressions, that add humor and personality to each chat. Many social networks include online chat or instant messaging to help you stay connected to community members, friends and family members. The most common emoticons express strong emotions such as feeling happy, sad or angry, and are created with numbers, symbols or even letters on your keyboard. With practice just about anyone can learn to incorporate these faces into their Internet dialogue.

Instructions

1. 

   Find the shift key.

   Find the SHIFT keys on either side of the keyboard. The SHIFT key aids you in making the majority of emoticon faces.

2. 

   Press shift

   Press and hold down the SHIFT key.

3. 

   The colon symbol makes the eyes of the smiley face.

   Press the semi-colon key once (located on the right of the letter "L" key).
   Release the SHIFT key. You will produce a colon symbol or ":". The colon represents the eyes, and is used with other symbols to create a face.

4. Press and hold down SHIFT key. The next symbol depends on what face you want to make. For example, if you want to make a happy face, press the number "0" key once while holding down the SHIFT key.

5. 

   Complete your emoticon face.

   Release the SHIFT key. You should now have a colon and open parenthesis or ":)".
   This is the smiley or happy face emoticon. Your computer in most cases will automatically respond by instantly changing your typed emoticon symbol into a yellow emoticon face.

6. Press the BACKWARD or arrow key once (located above the ENTER key) to erase the smile or ")" of your smiley face. Your eyes or ":" should be left.

7. 

   Make all kinds of faces and expressions.

   Press and hold down the SHIFT key. Choose from the following keys to make a different face. Pressing the number "9" key will make a sad emoticon face or ":(". The "D" key will make a grinning face or ":D". The "P" key will make a ":P" or sticking-your-tongue-out face.

8. 

   Smiley face with a nose

   Practice making additional faces by learning single face features. A nose is made by pressing the dash key or "-- "(located to the right of the number "0"). A example is " :-)", or a smiley with a nose. You also can change the eyes of your emoticon by using different keys, such as the semi-colon key (makes a ";)"or winking face), or the equal key, "=" (makes a smiley"= ) " with longer eyes).

References

• Squidoo: Emoticons and Smileys
• Fast Emoticons: Emoticon Codes