list of Alt codes used for Symbols

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Christina Schewe - 06 Apr 2004 16:38 GMT

I have an end user that is looking for a complete list of
Alt codes used for symbols. If you are familiar with
WordPro, you can get a table of all alt codes for
individual symbols. She would also like this in Word.
Any suggestions?

Reply to this Message

Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 07 Apr 2004 06:56 GMT

' Macro created 12-08-98 by Doug Robbins to list symbols that can be
inserted via Alt+keypad

'

ActiveDocument.Tables.Add Range:=Selection.Range, NumRows:=1,
NumColumns:=3

Selection.TypeText Text:="Alt + Numeric Keypad"

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

Selection.TypeText Text:="Normal Font"

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

Selection.TypeText Text:="Symbol Font"

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

Symbol = 33

While Symbol < 256

Selection.TypeText Text:="0" & LTrim$(Str$(Symbol))

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

With Selection

.InsertSymbol CharacterNumber:=Symbol, Font:="Normal",
Unicode:=False

End With

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

With Selection

.InsertSymbol CharacterNumber:=Symbol, Font:="Symbol",
Unicode:=False

End With

Symbol = Symbol + 1

Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdCell

Wend

Signature

Please post any further questions or followup to the newsgroups for the
benefit of others who may be interested. Unsolicited questions forwarded
directly to me will only be answered on a paid consulting basis.

Hope this helps
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

>I have an end user that is looking for a complete list of
> Alt codes used for symbols. If you are familiar with
> WordPro, you can get a table of all alt codes for
> individual symbols. She would also like this in Word.
> Any suggestions?

Reply to this Message

Klaus Linke - 08 Apr 2004 03:01 GMT

> I have an end user that is looking for a complete list of
> Alt codes used for symbols.

This may be more than your end user bargained for, but the following macro
will create the full list.
The codes below 256 are just the tip of the iceberg for fonts like "Times
New Roman" (1320 characters) or "Arial Unicode MS" (50.377 characters).

Dim i As Long
For i = &H20& To &HFFFF&
Selection.InsertAfter ChrW(i)
Selection.InsertAfter vbTab & "Alt+"
If i >= 128 And i <= 256 Then
Selection.InsertAfter "0"
End If
Selection.InsertAfter i
Selection.InsertAfter vbTab & "= "
Selection.InsertAfter Hex(i) & " (hex)"
Selection.InsertAfter vbCr
Selection.Collapse (wdCollapseEnd)
Next i

Regards,
Klaus

Reply to this Message

Michael $michka$ Kaplan [MS] - 08 Apr 2004 16:34 GMT

Of course, this will produce many non-characters, and there are no fonts
that will have everything in Unicode anyway.

Signature

MichKa [MS]
NLS Collation/Locale/Keyboard Development
Globalization Infrastructure and Font Technologies

This posting is provided "AS IS" with
no warranties, and confers no rights.

> > I have an end user that is looking for a complete list of
> > Alt codes used for symbols.
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
> Regards,
> Klaus

Reply to this Message

Klaus Linke - 08 Apr 2004 20:12 GMT

"Michael (michka) Kaplan [MS]" <michkap@online.microsoft.com> wrote:

> Of course, this will produce many non-characters,

Agreed: only 50377/65536 or 77% are "real" characters in Unicode v.2.
But it's also interesting to see what has been hidden in the "private use"
areas, such as formatting characters in Word with codes U+FDD0 and
following.

> and there are no fonts that will have everything in Unicode anyway.

"Arial Unicode MS" has all characters in Unicode version 2, according to MS.

Regards,
Klaus

Reply to this Message

Michael $michka$ Kaplan [MS] - 08 Apr 2004 22:05 GMT

"Klaus Linke" <info@fotosatz-kaufmann.de.no.junk> wrote...

> "Michael (michka) Kaplan [MS]" <michkap@online.microsoft.com> wrote:
> > Of course, this will produce many non-characters,
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> areas, such as formatting characters in Word with codes U+FDD0 and
> following.

Very few of which will be usefully displayed to be able to be understood,
right? Also, most of the PUA is on its way out of the core fonts, so its not
too exciting...

> > and there are no fonts that will have everything in Unicode anyway.
>
> "Arial Unicode MS" has all characters in Unicode version 2, according to MS.

And a ton of characters have been added between then and now -- and control
characters and many other items that would come from Alt codes will also not
display usefully, either (even with a megafont).

Signature

MichKa [MS]
NLS Collation/Locale/Keyboard Development
Globalization Infrastructure and Font Technologies

This posting is provided "AS IS" with
no warranties, and confers no rights.

Reply to this Message

Klaus Linke - 08 Apr 2004 23:01 GMT

Hi Mich,

> > Agreed: only 50377/65536 or 77% are "real" characters in Unicode v.2.
> > But it's also interesting to see what has been hidden in the "private use"
> > areas, such as formatting characters in Word with codes U+FDD0 and
> > following.

> Very few of which will be usefully displayed to be able to be understood,
> right?

The formatting characters I mentioned seem to be rendered by Word
independently of the font used, so "no" in this case.
Though I admit that I really don't see much use for them.

> Also, most of the PUA is on its way out of the core fonts, so its not
> too exciting...

Also agreed. Sometimes there are some ligatures or combining diacritics
above U+F000 that come in handy, but I avoid using them.

> > "Arial Unicode MS" has all characters in Unicode version 2, according
> > to MS.

> And a ton of characters have been added between then and now

... which would reduce the number of non-characters you complaied about ;-)

> -- and control characters and many other items that would come from Alt
> codes will also not display usefully, either (even with a megafont).

Not sure what the "many other items" are. Control characers were missing in
Doug's list, too, and it even contained a few "non-characters" (Alt+0129,
Alt+0141, Alt+0143, Alt+0144, Alt+0157).

MS is playing some games in WinXP: Alt+1 will give you a :-) smiley, and
so on
for most of the other "control characters". The produced symbols look like
what DOS displayed for the corresponding control characters.
Since DOS is dead, the introduction of such a gimmick *now* seems a bit
outdated.

Greetings,
Klaus
(sorry for the PM -- I hit the wrong button)

Reply to this Message