How to i type?
It’s easy to type the paragraph symbol or sign (¶), also known as a pilcrow, into a Microsoft Word document, on a Mac, and on iOS or Android devices.
Learn each method below.
Related: How to Type the British Pound (£) Sign
When using Microsoft Word on a PC, click on the document where you want the paragraph symbol to go. Next, hold down the Alt key and type the numbers 0182.
An alternative method for inserting the paragraph symbol on Microsoft Word is to type the alphanumeric combination 00B6. Next, highlight this code and press the Alt and letter x keys simultaneously.
Related: How to Type the Infinity (∞) Symbol
Lastly, if you plan on using the paragraph symbol multiple times in a Microsoft Word document, you can adjust your AutoCorrect options to automatically replace a word (such as “paragraph”) with a ¶.
The keyboard shortcut is the easiest way to type the paragraph symbol on a Mac. Hold down Option, followed by the number 7.
The paragraph symbol can also be found in your Mac’s Character Viewer. First, find Emoji & Symbols under the Edit menu. Expand the window by clicking the top-right browser icon. From the left sidebar, select the Punctuation icon.
From the list of punctuation symbols, double-click the paragraph symbol. You can also highlight and drag the ¶ into your text.
You can type a lot of characters that may not have a corresponding key on your keyboard – such as European language alphabetic characters, ASCII symbols, and even Chinese characters (also known as Hanzi, Kanji, or Hanja).
These Alt codes are also helpful if you have a keyboard with a stuck or missing key.
Below I will break down the entire list of alt keys by category. But first, here's the full list. (Note: this does not include the many, many characters from non-western European languages – otherwise it would be 100,000s of codes long.)
Below is a nice ASCII-formatted table of the most commonly-used symbols and characters. It took me a while to assemble all of these get them looking good.
As a developer, when I search for these codes I often get results that are image-based. These are inaccessible to people with visual disabilities, and make it hard for everyone to copy-paste the codes.
OK – now let's break this list down by sections.
The first 31 alt codes are dedicated to fun characters like happy faces, arrows, and other common symbols:
As I mentioned earlier, you can use Alt codes to type characters you could otherwise type on your keyboard. This is helpful if one of your keyboard keys is non-operational.
Alt codes 32 through 126 are dedicated to these keys. And yes, Alt 32 is the space character.
The next few Alt codes are focused on currencies, with a few Spanish-specific characters as well. These are helpful if you need to type the Spanish ñ letter or make upside down question marks or exclamation marks.
This is my favorite section – the many, many ASCII symbols you can use to make command line menus and ASCII art.
And of course, you can type the Greek letters using alt codes. These are super helpful for typing out mathematical formats wherever you need to. For any real heavy lifting, you'd probably want to use something like TeX, but if you're just trying to send a mathematical expression through an instant message, these alt codes can come in hand.
