Every glyph (character) has a corresponding codepoint in the unicode table of all the possible glyphs in a font. This table will both provide you with the character that you can copy and paste, as well as the unicode codepoint.

If the glyph has a corresponding ascii code, then (in Windows, anyway ) you can insert the key using your extended numberpad on your keyboard by holding the alt key whilst you enter the ascii codepoint.

You will notice that there are not ascii codepoint for all the glyphs - that is because those glyphs don't exist in the ascii table.

Another thing to remember is that there are three puzzle pieces needed for you to use unicode characters that don't have corresponding ascii codepoints: first, your text file needs to be encoded as unicode. Second, your text editor needs to be able to render unicode characters. Third, your font needs to have the very characters! Every text editor can render ascii, but not every text editor can render unicode. So if you find that you can't seem to get unicode characters into your code, it is a problem with one of these two puzzle pieces. In the following table, the unicode points are correct for most fonts - it is possible that a font authour has placed their glyphs in the wrong codepoints, which means that some fonts can differ from others.

AX is a little windows program that easily and quickly lets you swap a regular letter for a special character. Here is a configuration file prepared for Latin and Chant characters.

Still need more characters?

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