Inserting Characters and Symbols

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You can insert special characters or symbols into content. This can be done by using the Character dialog, by inserting a quick character that you have specified, by selecting a favorite character, or by selecting a recent character.

How to Insert a Character or Symbol From the Character Dialog

1. Open the document or topic.
2. Place your cursor where you want to insert the character or symbol.
3. Do one of the following, depending on the part of the user interface you are using:
   • Ribbon Select Insert > Character (face of the button).
   • Local Toolbar In the local toolbar of the XML Editor, click the face of the Character button .
   • Keyboard Shortcut Press SHIFT+F11.

   The Character dialog opens.

4. Select a character and click Insert.

5. If you are not using the option to automatically close the dialog, you can continue to select characters (if you want to insert others) and click Insert. When finished, you need to click Close as well.

   There are several other features that you can use in this dialog, including setting a quick character, searching for characters, and adding them to your favorites list. For details on all of these features, see Character Dialog.

6. Click to save your work.

How to Insert a Quick Character

1. Make sure you have specified the quick character in the Character dialog. See Specifying Quick Characters.
2. Open the document or topic.
3. Place your cursor where you want to insert the character or symbol.
4. Do one of the following, depending on the part of the user interface you are using:
   • Ribbon Select Insert > Character > Insert Quick Character.
   • Local Toolbar In the local toolbar of the XML Editor, click the down arrow next to the Character button and select Insert Quick Character from the list.
   • Keyboard Shortcut Press F11.
5. Click to save your work.

How to Insert a Favorite Character

1. Make sure you have added the character to your list of favorites in the Character dialog. To do this, simply right-click on the character in the Character dialog and select Make favorite.
2. Open the document or topic.
3. Place your cursor where you want to insert the character or symbol.
4. Do one of the following, depending on the part of the user interface you are using:
   • Ribbon Select Insert > Character > Favorites > [character or symbol].
   • Local Toolbar In the local toolbar of the XML Editor, click the down arrow next to the Character button and select a character or symbol listed under Favorites.
5. Click to save your work.

How to Insert a Recently Used Character

1. Open the document or topic.
2. Place your cursor where you want to insert the character or symbol.
3. Do one of the following, depending on the part of the user interface you are using:
   • Ribbon Select Insert > Character > Recently Used > [character or symbol].
   • Local Toolbar In the local toolbar of the XML Editor, click the down arrow next to the Character button and select a character or symbol listed under Recently Used.
4. Click to save your work.

Character and Symbol Entities in the Code

Remember that this is an XML editor that follows the W3C XHTML Schema specification. Therefore, if you want or need to enter entities for characters and symbols (e.g., via a third-party tool), you need to use the XHTML entity number.

After you add a valid entity into the Text Editor, it is converted to the actual character or symbol after you switch to the XML Editor view and then back to the Text Editor view.

You can find a list of valid entity numbers for characters and symbols on the W3C website. See:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/sgml/entities.html

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