(Legacy) Microsoft Word 2007: Inserting Symbols and Special Characters

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Note: This article is based on legacy software.

When creating documents, you may need to use a symbol or special character that does not appear on the keyboard. These symbols and special characters can be accessed through the Symbol dialog box.

Inserting Symbols

Use the Symbol dialog box to locate symbols, characters from other languages, arrows, and other characters. Symbols inserted into documents can then be formatted as regular text. To see a video of these procedures, refer to video: Inserting Symbols.

  1. Place the insertion point where the symbol will be inserted

  2. From the Insert tab, in the Symbols group, click SYMBOL

  3. Select one of the symbol options Word provides
    OR
    Select More Symbols... 
    The Symbol dialog box appears.
    symbol
     

  4. Select the Symbols tab

  5. Select the desired symbol

    NOTE: If you do not see the desired symbol, from the Font pull-down list, select another font.
     

  6. Click INSERT
    The symbol appears in your document.

  7. Repeat steps 4-5 until you insert all symbols you want

  8. Click CLOSE

Inserting Special Characters

Special characters, like symbols, do not appear on the keyboard; however, some have more functionality than symbols. For example, the nonbreaking hyphen appears like any other hyphen, but the words it separates will always remain on the same line (i.e., they will not be broken apart).

  1. Place the insertion point where the special character will be inserted

  2. From the Insert command tab, in the Symbols group, click SYMBOL ยป select More Symbols...
    The Symbol dialog box appears.
    symbol
     

  3. Select the Special Characters tab

  4. From the Character scroll box, select the desired character

  5. Click INSERT
    The special character appears in your document.

  6. Repeat steps 4-5 until you insert all characters you want

  7. Click CLOSE