Quick access to special characters and emoji

By Ed Bott

Modern communications require much more than simple letters and numbers. If you regularly correspond with friends and co-workers who speak a foreign language, you need quick access to characters that aren't part of the standard US English alphabet, including variations with accents and tildes and other diacritical marks.

In Windows 10, you can find most special characters, including those that contain accents or diacritical marks, by using the Charmap utility (Charmap.exe). But there's a faster way: Open the touch keyboard using its shortcut in the navigation area and then press or click and hold any letter to see alternatives. For example, press and hold n to see ñ, or do the same with a vowel like a or e to see its many accented alternatives.

And of course, you need emoji. Because who can resist adding the perfect graphical gesture at the end of a pithy remark? Beginning in 2017, you can open a searchable, multi-tabbed emoji panel by using the keyboard shortcut Windows key + . (period) or Windows key + ; (semicolon).

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