Problems typing special characters?

Question

I know it's the compose key, and I set it to right Alt and i set the "3rd level" option to the Shift + Alt, but i can't figure out for the life of me for example how to do the copyright symbol, or the registered mark, or trademark symbol, etc. I try alt then c but i get č...

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Compose key

Compose,o,c will produce ©.

You can view the combinations in your locale's Compose file, e.g.

/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose

For those without a compose key configured (it isn't by default), the setting is hidden away at System > Preferences > Keyboard > Layout > Options... > Compose Key Position. I prefer to use the "menu" key as compose, but it's a matter of preference.

AltGr (Third-level modifier)

On a UK English layout, AltGr+Shift+c also produces ©.

The standard USA layout doesn't include many characters at the third level as US keyboards have a second Alt rather than AltGr.

The layouts "USA International (AltGr dead keys)" and "USA International" have © at AltGr+c. "USA International (AltGr dead keys)" would be better for most as the other turns the apostrophe into a dead key for the acute accent.

The Ubuntu documentation has a comprehensive list of Compose key sequences plus further info on Compose and AltGr.

Answer 2

For an occasional unicode character there is always Ctrl+Shift+*unicode-value*
This allows you to type virtually all Unicoode charactesr... (basically all the public ones)

You can get any and all unicode values (Codepoints) from many places;
I find this one the most useful: fileformat.info characcter search

Just search for 'copyright' and take you pick..
The most relevant unicode symbol is

• COPYRIGHT SIGN - U+00A9

To enter it in a Gnome window (like here), just type: Ctrl+Shift+00a9
followed by a space .. use lowercase letters ("a" not "A")

• ©

Here are a couple more. Just type Ctrl+Shift where you see U+,
and use lower case letters: a b c d e f

☺ U+263A    WHITE SMILING FACE
☻ U+263B    BLACK SMILING FACE

---

Here is a link for general interest (or boredom :)
A count of Unicode characters grouped by script

Answer 3

For the copyright symbol, try this page . [Actually, do what @misterben says in his terrific answer. I'll leave this link as a curiosity.]

As a generalized answer, if you are typing something odd that you do not often use, do a search for a word containing the character, and cut and paste.

For instance, on the Wikipedia Linguistics page , go to any of the languages listed on the left column. This solution also works for special characters with the correct search.

Answer 4

For searching-and-copying rare chars, this is invaluable:

$ sudo apt-get install unicode unicode-data

Then:

$ unicode copyright
U+00A9 COPYRIGHT SIGN
UTF-8: c2 a9  UTF-16BE: 00a9  Decimal: ©
©
Category: So (Symbol, Other)
Bidi: ON (Other Neutrals)

U+2117 SOUND RECORDING COPYRIGHT
UTF-8: e2 84 97  UTF-16BE: 2117  Decimal: ℗
℗
Category: So (Symbol, Other)
Bidi: ON (Other Neutrals)