Enter special characters with or without keyboard shortcuts

By Ed Bott

The Character Map tool has been a part of Windows for decades. Its role is simple: It allows you to find special characters, not available on a standard keyboard layout, and enter them anywhere that accepts typed text.

To open Character Map, enter its command, Charmap, in the search box and then press Enter. The resulting app displays 200 characters at a time, in 10 rows of 20 characters each. You can visually scan through the list or click the Advanced View checkbox and use its search tools to find a specific character.

Every character has a descriptive name, making searches easy. For example, say you're looking for an inverted question mark for use in a document written in Spanish using an English keyboard. Type ques in the Search For box and then click Search to show a handful of results, including the Inverted Question Mark character.

Best of all, Character Map also offers a cheat sheet for keyboard shortcuts. Just look in the lower-right corner for the matching combination, which you'll enter by holding down the Alt key as you type numbers using the numeric keypad. If you regularly type in Spanish, use Alt+0161 and Alt+1091, respectively, for the Inverted Exclamation Point and Inverted Question Mark characters.

Microsoft isn't updating some PCs with next-gen CPUs--and never will

Next-generation CPUs are designed for Windows 10 only, which means PCs running Windows 7 or 8 may never update. This was Microsoft's intention all along.

Five ways to add a note to an Outlook email message

SQL refresher: How to use the CASE function in a select statement to make your data clear

Facebook's secret team is working on hardware that can scan your brain and read your mind

Use Panopticlick to find out if you've been betrayed by your browser

Microsoft Outlook, Skype, OneDrive hit by another authentication issue

Microsoft, Adobe make some progress on their joint cloud commitments

Windows 10: Microsoft pushes out new build ahead of the Creators Update

Microsoft finalizes its Chinese-customized Windows 10 edition

Video: Top 5 ways to get trustworthy news

There are a lot of sites out there that promise to deliver the news. Even recognizable sources vary in reliability. Here's how to set yourself up to get the highest quality information.

Gallery: A look at the original headquarters of your favorite tech brands

Is your company's cybersecurity better or worse than last year? Why do your coworkers ignore cybersecurity practices? How do you rate your organization's cybersecurity efforts? Take the cybersecurity survey about current plans, future initiatives, concerns, and methods, and get a copy of the research report.

Digital transformation: A CXO's guide

Reimagining business for the digital age is the number-one priority for many of today's top executives. We offer practical advice and examples of how to do it right.