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Wondering how folks make all those cute little symbols? Character Mapping 101

By Karen Burket

Mortgage and Lending with Bank of Oregon a division of Willamette Valley Bank

March 18, 2011 11:41 AM

I had first taken notice of this on Facebook. A number of posts that had cute little symbols attached to them.

Some examples were: Around Christmas time I was seeing something like ♪♫♫♪We wish you a Merry Christmas, We Wish you a Merry Christmas!♪♫♫♪. How in the world did they get those little musical notes into their post?

Or, perhaps you want to ©Copywrite something or give something a Trademark ™. Where did that little "©" and cute little "™"come from?

Well wonder no more. I'll bet you have a Character Map installed on your computer. These character maps will provide you endless entertainment with the various symbols available.

It's actually pretty easy. Go to "Start" / "Programs" / "Accessories" / "System Tools" /"Character Map"

From here, Click on Character Map, and the following will come up.

Depending on your computer and system, you will most likely have a large variety of fonts you can chose from in the drop down box. Once you find the symbol you are looking for, merely click on it, hit "select", then copy and paste it into your blog. Voila!

I hope this is useful! Most of you probably already knew how to do this, but it was Greek to me until a friend walked me through the proces. Happy Character Mapping!

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Tara Cummins

Stratagy4SuccessNow - Mesa, AZ

Marketing Concierge, Strategy4SuccessNow

Nice post! Now, if you look you'll notice that a lot of them have keyboard shortcuts. I was a French major in college, and I still have some of them (é ç, è) memorized. One I use often today is Alt + 0149 which gives you this: • (Hold down the Alt key and type in the 0149.)

Mar 18, 2011 11:56 AM

Andy Barclay

RE/MAX Elite - Cocoa Beach, FL

ABR, CDPE, SFR, ePro

Thanks for the tip and the great screen shot that clearly shows where to find the character map! I've wondered how other people on Facebook make the characters, but I've never wanted to ask.

Mar 18, 2011 12:08 PM

Cindy Westfall

Premiere Property Group,LLC Portland Metro & Suburbs Oregon - Tualatin, OR

ABR,GRI Your Tualatin & Portland Metro Real Estate

Hi Karen, I had something like this saved into my faves from a blog here on AR, but when my hard drive crashed I lost it. Thanks for showing me where to find it on my own computer..who knew?

Mar 18, 2011 12:14 PM

Donna Foerster

HomeSmart Realty Group - Parker, CO

Metro Denver Real Estate Assistant

I had no idea Karen! Thanks for sharing. Now I can "jazz" up my posts!

Mar 18, 2011 12:46 PM

Karen Burket

Bank of Oregon a division of Willamette Valley Bank - Medford, OR

Valley Mortgage Grou, Conventional, FHA, VA, mortgages

Hi Tara! "Merci" for the nice comments! ;-) Now, I will admit I'm not used to, aware of any keyboard shortcuts..I'm lucky I can find the "on" button! lol. I tried holding down the Alt Key and putting in 0149, but when I press on the ALT key, it doesn't allow me to type anything. Could be because hubby's laptop maybe doesn't have a keyboard shortcut? I'm stumped.

Hi Andy! Glad you found the tip helpful. I'll admit...it was just about a week ago I figured out how to do screen shots as well! lol. Guess this old dog CAN learn a new trick or two! Thank you for reading and taking the time to post. Mucho appreciated! Gee, I'm so bilingual! lol NOT!

Hi Cindy, glad I could help! So many useful tips here on AR and although I'm hardly a wealth of knowledge, do enjoy sharing the little tid bits I run across.

Best!

Karen

Mar 18, 2011 12:47 PM

Karen Burket

Bank of Oregon a division of Willamette Valley Bank - Medford, OR

Valley Mortgage Grou, Conventional, FHA, VA, mortgages

Hi Donna! Glad I stumbled on a little suggestion that could be beneficial! Looking forward to your JAZZY posts, m'dear!

Mar 18, 2011 12:49 PM

Richard Weisser

Richard Weisser Realty - Newnan, GA

Richard Weisser Retired Real Estate Professional

Karen...

Ah, all of those cool characters we love to use but can never figure out how. Thanks for the tip!

Mar 18, 2011 01:42 PM

Janet Jones

Just Your Style Interiors, LLC - Kihei, HI

Home Staging, Interior Redesign Kihei, Maui, Hawaii

Hi Karen--Thanks for that post. I use a MacBook but you got me motivated to find out where the Mac character set is. So thanks!

Mar 18, 2011 01:50 PM

Karen Burket

Bank of Oregon a division of Willamette Valley Bank - Medford, OR

Valley Mortgage Grou, Conventional, FHA, VA, mortgages

You are most welcome, Richard! Glad to be of help!

Hi Janet! I "think" Mac has same/similar application, as if memory serves me correctly, the friend who walked me through the process, I'm pretty sure has a Mac. If you have other questions, shout out to me, and I'll definitely have him give an added hand.

Best to you both!

Karen

Mar 18, 2011 01:52 PM

Debbie Jean (DJ) Artrip

Debbie Jean (DJ) Artrip, Cardinal Real Estate, Northern Mich - Hawks, MI

Hey Karen, Thanks tons, you're right, I do have the chracater map in my accessories. Thanks for sharing.

Mar 18, 2011 04:06 PM

Donna Foerster

HomeSmart Realty Group - Parker, CO

Metro Denver Real Estate Assistant

I just wrote my first post using Scribefire. Next step, Character Mapping! :-)

Mar 18, 2011 05:05 PM

Karen Burket

Bank of Oregon a division of Willamette Valley Bank - Medford, OR

Valley Mortgage Grou, Conventional, FHA, VA, mortgages

You are most welcome, Debbie! Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Happy Character Mapping!

You go with your bad self, Donna! :-)

Mar 19, 2011 04:21 AM

Jim Frimmer

HomeSmart Realty West - San Diego, CA

Realtor & CDPE, Mission Valley specialist

You can also use Word’s Insert Symbols command, or, if you know the symbol you want, you can use the ALT key code combination on your numeric keypad. For example, I often use musical notes since I play the piano. ♪♫♫♪♪♫. Using your numeric keypad at the right side of your keyboard, hold the ALT key down and then press 1 and 3 or 1 and 4.

Mar 19, 2011 06:35 AM

Karen Burket

Bank of Oregon a division of Willamette Valley Bank - Medford, OR

Valley Mortgage Grou, Conventional, FHA, VA, mortgages

Hi Jim! Sounds like you and Tara have the same knowledge with regard to that. I'll have to experiment with that ALT key as well! Thanks for the added information!

Best~
Karen

Mar 21, 2011 05:41 AM

Anonymous

Jill Johnson

http://www.tedmontgomery.com/tutorial/altchrc.html

That website has a great list of special Alt characters. If you don't want to click on the link, just google Special Alt characters and you'll find some good resources.

If it doesn't work for you, try turning on the NUM lock key.

Good luck and get creating!

Jun 03, 2011 05:58 PM

#15

Karen Burket

Bank of Oregon a division of Willamette Valley Bank - Medford, OR

Valley Mortgage Grou, Conventional, FHA, VA, mortgages

Thanks Jill for the added resource. Have a great day!

Jun 04, 2011 04:28 AM