Work with the Character Viewer >

1 Accented characters

To type an accented character, such as é, ö or ñ, hold down the corresponding letter key. A popover will show the accents you can add. Press the number under the one you want, or use the arrow keys to select and press to insert it.

2 Emoji and symbols

To pick from more characters, press Space]. This works in many places you can type, but not all – not in Spotlight, say. Either click the icons in the bottom bar to browse by category, scroll, or type the word for what you want.

3 Even more symbols

The top group in the panel contains characters you use often. You can drag the panel away from its app’s window to keep it open as you work. Or, scroll to the top and click the button at the top right to open an expanded character viewer.

4 Customise categories

Extra categories are available in this viewer. Click the gear and pick Customise List. Categories you tick are added to the regular viewer’s bottom bar, too. You can also set the expanded viewer’s text size and reset the Frequently Used list here.

5 Look up variations

If the search bar doesn’t turn up the (non-Emoji) letter or symbol you want, select something similar and look at the bottom-right pane, where you might see variations on what’s selected from other fonts, related characters, or both.

6 Favourite characters

Your ‘Recently Used’ characters will change over time. To keep a character around, in the expanded viewer click Add to Favourites in the bottom-right pane; this adds it to a group that persists near the top of both forms of the viewer.