Alt code finder

What an Alt code is

An Alt code is a shortcut built into Windows. You hold the Alt key, type a number on the numeric keypad, then release Alt, and the matching symbol appears. Holding Alt and typing 0176 gives you the degree sign. Holding Alt and typing 0128 gives you the euro sign.

The codes come from the days when a computer could show only 256 characters at a time, and they have survived because they are fast. Once a code is in your fingers you never look it up again, which is why people who type the same symbol every day prefer this over copying.

Four reasons an Alt code does not work

1. You used the number row. This is the usual one. Alt codes only read the numeric keypad on the right of a full keyboard. The numbers above the letters do nothing.
2. Num Lock is off. With Num Lock off the keypad sends arrows and page keys instead of digits. Press Num Lock and try again.
3. You are on a laptop with no keypad. Many laptops hide a keypad inside the letter keys, reachable with the Fn key. If yours does not have one, Alt codes are not available to you at all.
4. You dropped the leading zero. Alt 176 and Alt 0176 are different characters. The four digit version with a zero in front is almost always the one you want.

The Word method that always works

Microsoft Word, and Outlook with it, has a better trick that needs no keypad. Type the Unicode value from the table above without the U+ part, then press Alt + X. Typing 00B0 and pressing Alt + X turns it into the degree sign on the spot. Pressing Alt + X again turns it back, which is a quick way to check what a character actually is.

Mac shortcuts

Macs do not use Alt codes. They use the Option key, and the combinations are shorter and easier to remember. Option and Shift and 8 gives the degree sign. Option and Shift and 2 gives the euro. Both are in the Mac column of the table above.

For anything without a listed shortcut, press Control + Command + Space to open the macOS character viewer, search for the symbol by name and double click it.

HTML entities for the web

The HTML column matters if you write for the web. Pasting a raw symbol into a page usually works fine on a modern site, but an HTML entity such as ° is guaranteed to render correctly no matter how the file is encoded. That guarantee is worth having in email templates and older systems, where encoding is often out of your hands.

On a phone

Phones have no Alt key, so these codes do not apply. Hold down a related key instead: holding zero on an iPhone or Android keyboard offers the degree sign, holding the dollar key offers other currencies, and holding a vowel offers its accented versions. When that fails, copying from the symbol library is the fastest route.