OS X Tip: Character Palette
There was a time when finding those elusive accented Latin characters, symbols, and dingbats required the use of a shareware application. Or for those with plenty of patience, a session of hunting and pecking on the keyboard (lord knows how many times I've typed a string of alphabet keys just to find some stupid character). With the Character Palette built-in to OS X, all that is history. To use the system-wide character palette, open you System Preferences. Then click on International. Then chose the "Input Menu" tab at the far right. In the list of keyboard languages should be an item named "Character Palette." Turn it on by checking the box. Close your preferences. At the top menu of the OS, right next to your Help option, will be the Character Palette icon. Click on it and select "Show Character Palette." When you find the character you need, double click on it, and the OS will insert it into whatever application you are currently using. To make the deal even better, the palette automatically loads every time you reboot (until you turn it off in the preferences), so there is no need to launch an application every time you need to find that special character.
Comments
Thanks for the tip! I usually use Keycaps to hunt for symbols and was so annoyed that they still didn't make Keycaps show characters at a legible size. It's really cool that the symbols in the character palette enlarge as you enlarge the window so you can get a good look at what you're hunting for. Great tool!
Posted by: Lauri at October 15, 2002 1:09 PM
Another amazing thing about OS X!
I love it. Thanks for the tip.
Posted by: Hartmurmur at October 15, 2002 2:19 PM
Character Palette is nice but it kind of drives me up the wall when I actually try to use it. For instance, resizing the window makes the sample text larger instead of showing you more of the characters. And once you do find the ü or whatever, it doesn't teach you the keystroke to do it next time. And most infuriatingly, it uses one of those weird "Even though I have a Close Button, Apple-W doesn't close me, it closes YOUR DOCUMENT INSTEAD mwuhaha!" windows. I think I'm going to end up ponying up the $30 for the indisputible character-selecting champ, PopChar.
Posted by: Brian W at October 15, 2002 5:30 PM
Oh wow. Thanks - this tip really helps. On a related note - as someone who just made the switch - I find lots of good stuff here! Keep it up!
Posted by: dkr at October 15, 2002 8:48 PM
