Learn to type different characters

1 Typing accents

Suppose you are creating a document and need an accented letter. Long-press the letter key until this widget appears then press the number under the character you want.

2 Enter emojis

Emojis are fun characters that you might want to use in documents, emails or messages. Press ctrl+cmd+spacebar to display this window to select emojis from.

3 Enter special symbols

Click on the icon in the top-right to expand and then click ‘Letterlike Symbols’ on the left to see these characters. Browse the font variations in the lower-right corner.

4 Search for symbols

There are hundreds of characters, so use the search box in the top-right corner to find the ones you want. For example, type ‘weather’ to see the weather symbols.

5 Most-used characters

Select ‘Frequently Used Characters’ at the top of the sidebar to find something you have used before. Click the gear and select ‘Clear’ to remove old ones from the list.

6 More characters

Click the gear and select ‘Customise List’ to see the full roster of characters. You are currently only seeing about half the collections. Tick the boxes for more characters.