Character Sets Used by Fonts

All fonts use a character set. A character set contains punctuation marks, numerals, uppercase and lowercase letters, and all other printable characters. Each element of a character set is identified by a number.

Most character sets in use are supersets of the U.S. ASCII character set, which defines characters for the 96 numeric values from 32 through 127. There are five major groups of character sets:

• Windows
• Unicode
• OEM (original equipment manufacturer)
• Symbol
• Vendor-specific

Windows Character Set

The Windows character set is the most commonly used character set. It is essentially equivalent to the ANSI character set. The blank character is the first character in the Windows character set. It has a hexadecimal value of 0x20 (decimal 32). The last character in the Windows character set has a hexadecimal value of 0xFF (decimal 255).

Many fonts specify a default character. Whenever a request is made for a character that is not in the font, the system provides this default character. Many fonts using the Windows character set specify the period (.) as the default character. TrueType and OpenType fonts typically use an open box as the default character.

Fonts use a break character called a quad to separate words and justify text. Most fonts using the Windows character set specify that the blank character will serve as the break character.

Unicode Character Set

The Windows character set uses 8 bits to represent each character; therefore, the maximum number of characters that can be expressed using 8 bits is 256 (2^8). This is usually sufficient for Western languages, including the diacritical marks used in French, German, Spanish, and other languages. However, Eastern languages employ thousands of separate characters, which cannot be encoded by using a single-byte coding scheme. With the proliferation of computer commerce, double-byte coding schemes were developed so that characters could be represented in 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit, or 32-bit sequences. This requires complicated passing algorithms; even so, using different code sets could yield entirely different results on two different computers.

To address the problem of multiple coding schemes, the Unicode standard for data representation was developed. A 16-bit character coding scheme, Unicode can represent 65,536 (2^16) characters, which is enough to include all languages in computer commerce today, as well as punctuation marks, mathematical symbols, and room for expansion. Unicode establishes a unique code for every character to ensure that character translation is always accurate.

OEM Character Set

The OEM character set is typically used in full-screen MS-DOS sessions for screen display. Characters 32 through 127 are usually the same in the OEM, U.S. ASCII, and Windows character sets. The other characters in the OEM character set (0 through 31 and 128 through 255) correspond to the characters that can be displayed in a full-screen MS-DOS session. These characters are generally different from the Windows characters.

Symbol Character Set

The Symbol character set contains special characters typically used to represent mathematical and scientific formulas.

Vendor-Specific Character Sets

Many printers and other output devices provide fonts based on character sets that differ from the Windows and OEM setsfor example, the Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) character set. To use one of these character sets, the printer driver translates from the Windows character set to the vendor-specific character set.

Insert ASCII or Unicode character codes in Word

Insert a symbol using the keyboard with ASCII or Unicode character codes

Symbols and special characters are either inserted using ASCII or Unicode codes. You can tell which is which when you look up the code for the character.

Go to Insert > Symbol > More Symbols.

Find the symbol you want.

Tip: The Segoe UI Symbol font has a very large collection of Unicode symbols to choose from.

On the bottom right you’ll see Character code and from:. The Character code is what you’ll enter to insert this symbol from the keyboard. The from: field tells you if it’s a Unicode or an ASCII character.

Unicode

ASCII

Inserting Unicode Characters

Type the character code where you want to insert the Unicode symbol.

Press ALT+X to convert the code to the symbol.

If you’re placing your Unicode character immediately after another character, select just the code before pressing ALT+X.

Tip: If you don’t get the character you expected, make sure you have the correct font selected.

Inserting ASCII Characters

Use the numeric keypad with Num Lock on to type the ASCII numbers, not the numbers across the top of your keyboard.

All ASCII character codes are four digits long. If the code for the character you want is shorter than four digits, add zeros to the beginning to get to 4 digits.

Go to Home tab, in the Font group, change the font to Wingdings (or other font set).

Press and hold the ALT key and type the character code on the numeric keypad.

Change the font back to your previous font after inserting the symbol.

For more character symbols, see the Character Map installed on your computer, ASCII character codes, or Unicode character code charts by script.

ASCII and ANSI Character Table

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Overview

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a 7-bit character set that contains characters from 0 to 127.

The generic term ANSI (American National Standards Institute) is used for 8-bit character sets. These character sets contain the unchanged ASCII character set. In addition, they contain further characters from 128 to 255, which differ in the various ANSI character sets. There are character sets for western special characters and umlauts, and for Arabic, Greek or Cyrillic characters.

The following table shows which characters are available in which (western) character set:

Character code	Type	Available in character set
		ASCII	Windows-1252	ISO-8859-1
0 — 31	Control characters	YES	YES	YES
32 — 126	Printable characters	YES	YES	YES
127	Control characters	YES	YES	YES
128 — 159	Printable characters	NO	YES	NO (only as control characters)
160 — 255	Printable characters	NO	YES	YES

ASCII Control Characters (0-31 and 127)

These characters are part of ASCII, Windows-1252 and ISO-8859-1.

The characters with the ASCII codes 0 to 31 and 127 are control characters which are not intended for display.

The caret notation (in column «C») is often used in terminals to display control characters. These can usually be entered using the control key ( Ctrl ). For example, the notation «^C» corresponds to the key combination Ctrl + C .

The escape sequence (in column «E») is used e.g. in programming languages or search functions to be able to enter control characters as text.

C	Dec	Hex	Oct	Binary	C	E	Name
NUL	0	00	000	00000000	^@	\0	Null
SOH	1	01	001	00000001	^A	Start of Heading
STX	2	02	002	00000010	^B	Start of Text
ETX	3	03	003	00000011	^C	End of Text
EOT	4	04	004	00000100	^D	End of Transmission
ENQ	5	05	005	00000101	^E	Enquiry
ACK	6	06	006	00000110	^F	Acknowledge
BEL	7	07	007	00000111	^G	\a	Bell
BS	8	08	010	00001000	^H	\b	Backspace
HT	9	09	011	00001001	^I	\t	Horizontal Tab
LF	10	0A	012	00001010	^J	\n	Line Feed
VT	11	0B	013	00001011	^K	\v	Vertical Tab
FF	12	0C	014	00001100	^L	\f	Form Feed
CR	13	0D	015	00001101	^M	\r	Carriage Return
SO	14	0E	016	00001110	^N	Shift Out
SI	15	0F	017	00001111	^O	Shift In
DLE	16	10	020	00010000	^P	Data Link Escape
DC1	17	11	021	00010001	^Q	Device Control 1 (XON)
DC2	18	12	022	00010010	^R	Device Control 2
DC3	19	13	023	00010011	^S	Device Control 3 (XOFF)
DC4	20	14	024	00010100	^T	Device Control 4
NAK	21	15	025	00010101	^U	Negative Acknowledge
SYN	22	16	026	00010110	^V	Synchronous Idle
ETB	23	17	027	00010111	^W	End of Transmission Block
CAN	24	18	030	00011000	^X	Cancel
EM	25	19	031	00011001	^Y	End of Medium
SUB	26	1A	032	00011010	^Z	Substitute
ESC	27	1B	033	00011011	^[	\e	Escape
FS	28	1C	034	00011100	^\	File Separator
GS	29	1D	035	00011101	^]	Group Separator
RS	30	1E	036	00011110	^^	Record Separator
US	31	1F	037	00011111	^_	Unit Separator
DEL	127	7F	177	01111111	^?	Delete

ASCII Characters (32-126)

These characters are part of ASCII, Windows-1252 and ISO-8859-1.

Characters with ASCII codes 32 to 126 are so-called printable characters intended for display or output on printers.

C	Dec	Hex	Oct	Binary	Entity	Name
32	20	040	00100000	Space
!	33	21	041	00100001	!	Exclamation mark
«	34	22	042	00100010	«	Quotation mark
#	35	23	043	00100011	#	Number sign
$	36	24	044	00100100	$	Dollar sign
%	37	25	045	00100101	%	Percent sign
&	38	26	046	00100110	&	Ampersand
‘	39	27	047	00100111	‘	Apostrophe
(	40	28	050	00101000	(	Left parenthesis
)	41	29	051	00101001	)	Right parenthesis
*	42	2A	052	00101010	*	Asterisk
+	43	2B	053	00101011	+	Plus sign
,	44	2C	054	00101100	,	Comma
—	45	2D	055	00101101	Hyphen (minus sign)
.	46	2E	056	00101110	.	Period
/	47	2F	057	00101111	/	Slash
0	48	30	060	00110000	Digit 0
1	49	31	061	00110001	Digit 1
2	50	32	062	00110010	Digit 2
3	51	33	063	00110011	Digit 3
4	52	34	064	00110100	Digit 4
5	53	35	065	00110101	Digit 5
6	54	36	066	00110110	Digit 6
7	55	37	067	00110111	Digit 7
8	56	38	070	00111000	Digit 8
9	57	39	071	00111001	Digit 9
:	58	3A	072	00111010	:	Colon
;	59	3B	073	00111011	;	Semicolon
62	3E	076	00111110	>	Greater-than
?	63	3F	077	00111111	?	Question mark
@	64	40	100	01000000	@	At sign
A	65	41	101	01000001	Uppercase letter A
B	66	42	102	01000010	Uppercase letter B
C	67	43	103	01000011	Uppercase letter C
D	68	44	104	01000100	Uppercase letter D
E	69	45	105	01000101	Uppercase letter E
F	70	46	106	01000110	Uppercase letter F
G	71	47	107	01000111	Uppercase letter G
H	72	48	110	01001000	Uppercase letter H
I	73	49	111	01001001	Uppercase letter I
J	74	4A	112	01001010	Uppercase letter J
K	75	4B	113	01001011	Uppercase letter K
L	76	4C	114	01001100	Uppercase letter L
M	77	4D	115	01001101	Uppercase letter M
N	78	4E	116	01001110	Uppercase letter N
O	79	4F	117	01001111	Uppercase letter O
P	80	50	120	01010000	Uppercase letter P
Q	81	51	121	01010001	Uppercase letter Q
R	82	52	122	01010010	Uppercase letter R
S	83	53	123	01010011	Uppercase letter S
T	84	54	124	01010100	Uppercase letter T
U	85	55	125	01010101	Uppercase letter U
V	86	56	126	01010110	Uppercase letter V
W	87	57	127	01010111	Uppercase letter W
X	88	58	130	01011000	Uppercase letter X
Y	89	59	131	01011001	Uppercase letter Y
Z	90	5A	132	01011010	Uppercase letter Z
[	91	5B	133	01011011	[	Left square bracket
\	92	5C	134	01011100	\	Backslash
]	93	5D	135	01011101	]	Right square bracket
^	94	5E	136	01011110	^	Caret
_	95	5F	137	01011111	_	Underscore
`	96	60	140	01100000	`	Grave accent
a	97	61	141	01100001	Lowercase letter a
b	98	62	142	01100010	Lowercase letter b
c	99	63	143	01100011	Lowercase letter c
d	100	64	144	01100100	Lowercase letter d
e	101	65	145	01100101	Lowercase letter e
f	102	66	146	01100110	Lowercase letter f
g	103	67	147	01100111	Lowercase letter g
h	104	68	150	01101000	Lowercase letter h
i	105	69	151	01101001	Lowercase letter i
j	106	6A	152	01101010	Lowercase letter j
k	107	6B	153	01101011	Lowercase letter k
l	108	6C	154	01101100	Lowercase letter l
m	109	6D	155	01101101	Lowercase letter m
n	110	6E	156	01101110	Lowercase letter n
o	111	6F	157	01101111	Lowercase letter o
p	112	70	160	01110000	Lowercase letter p
q	113	71	161	01110001	Lowercase letter q
r	114	72	162	01110010	Lowercase letter r
s	115	73	163	01110011	Lowercase letter s
t	116	74	164	01110100	Lowercase letter t
u	117	75	165	01110101	Lowercase letter u
v	118	76	166	01110110	Lowercase letter v
w	119	77	167	01110111	Lowercase letter w
x	120	78	170	01111000	Lowercase letter x
y	121	79	171	01111001	Lowercase letter y
z	122	7A	172	01111010	Lowercase letter z
<	123	7B	173	01111011	{	Left curly brace
|	124	7C	174	01111100	|	Vertical bar
>	125	7D	175	01111101	}	Right curly brace
126	7E	176	01111110	Tilde

ANSI Characters (128-159)

These characters are part of Windows-1252. In ISO-8859-1 these characters are control characters.

C	Dec	Hex	Oct	Binary	Entity	Name
€	128	80	200	10000000	€	Euro sign
129	81	201	10000001	(Not used)
‚	130	82	202	10000010	‚	Single low-9 quotation mark
ƒ	131	83	203	10000011	ƒ	Latin small letter f with hook
„	132	84	204	10000100	„	Double low-9 quotation mark
…	133	85	205	10000101	…	Horizontal ellipsis
†	134	86	206	10000110	†	Dagger
‡	135	87	207	10000111	‡	Double dagger
ˆ	136	88	210	10001000	ˆ	Modifier letter circumflex accent
‰	137	89	211	10001001	‰	Per mille sign
Š	138	8A	212	10001010	Š	Latin capital letter S with caron
‹	139	8B	213	10001011	‹	Single left-pointing angle quotation mark
Œ	140	8C	214	10001100	Œ	Latin capital ligature OE
141	8D	215	10001101	(Not used)
Ž	142	8E	216	10001110	Ž	Latin capital letter Z with caron
143	8F	217	10001111	(Not used)
144	90	220	10010000	(Not used)
‘	145	91	221	10010001	‘	Left single quotation mark
’	146	92	222	10010010	’	Right single quotation mark
“	147	93	223	10010011	“	Left double quotation mark
”	148	94	224	10010100	”	Right double quotation mark
•	149	95	225	10010101	•	Bullet
–	150	96	226	10010110	–	En dash
—	151	97	227	10010111	—	Em dash
˜	152	98	230	10011000	˜	Small tilde
™	153	99	231	10011001	™	Trade mark sign
š	154	9A	232	10011010	š	Latin small letter s with caron
›	155	9B	233	10011011	›	Single right-pointing angle quotation mark
œ	156	9C	234	10011100	œ	Latin small ligature oe
157	9D	235	10011101	(Not used)
ž	158	9E	236	10011110	ž	Latin small letter z with caron
Ÿ	159	9F	237	10011111	Ÿ	Latin capital letter Y with diaeresis

ANSI Characters (160-255)

These characters are part of Windows-1252 and ISO-8859-1.

C	Dec	Hex	Oct	Binary	Entity	Name
160	A0	240	10100000	No-break space
¡	161	A1	241	10100001	¡	Inverted exclamation mark
¢	162	A2	242	10100010	¢	Cent sign
£	163	A3	243	10100011	£	Pound sign
¤	164	A4	244	10100100	¤	Currency sign
¥	165	A5	245	10100101	¥	Yen sign
¦	166	A6	246	10100110	¦	Broken bar
§	167	A7	247	10100111	§	Section sign
¨	168	A8	250	10101000	¨	Diaeresis
©	169	A9	251	10101001	©	Copyright sign
ª	170	AA	252	10101010	ª	Feminine ordinal indicator
«	171	AB	253	10101011	«	Left-pointing double angle quotation mark
¬	172	AC	254	10101100	¬	Not sign
­	173	AD	255	10101101	­	Soft hyphen
®	174	AE	256	10101110	®	Registered sign
¯	175	AF	257	10101111	¯	Macron
°	176	B0	260	10110000	°	Degree sign
±	177	B1	261	10110001	±	Plus-minus sign
²	178	B2	262	10110010	²	Superscript two
³	179	B3	263	10110011	³	Superscript three
´	180	B4	264	10110100	´	Acute accent
µ	181	B5	265	10110101	µ	Micro sign
¶	182	B6	266	10110110	¶	Pilcrow sign
·	183	B7	267	10110111	·	Middle dot
¸	184	B8	270	10111000	¸	Cedilla
¹	185	B9	271	10111001	¹	Superscript one
º	186	BA	272	10111010	º	Masculine ordinal indicator
»	187	BB	273	10111011	»	Right-pointing double angle quotation mark
¼	188	BC	274	10111100	¼	Vulgar fraction one quarter
½	189	BD	275	10111101	½	Vulgar fraction one half
¾	190	BE	276	10111110	¾	Vulgar fraction three quarters
¿	191	BF	277	10111111	¿	Inverted question mark
À	192	C0	300	11000000	À	Latin capital letter A with grave
Á	193	C1	301	11000001	Á	Latin capital letter A with acute
Â	194	C2	302	11000010	Â	Latin capital letter A with circumflex
Ã	195	C3	303	11000011	Ã	Latin capital letter A with tilde
Ä	196	C4	304	11000100	Ä	Latin capital letter A with diaeresis
Å	197	C5	305	11000101	Å	Latin capital letter A with ring above
Æ	198	C6	306	11000110	Æ	Latin capital letter AE
Ç	199	C7	307	11000111	Ç	Latin capital letter C with cedilla
È	200	C8	310	11001000	È	Latin capital letter E with grave
É	201	C9	311	11001001	É	Latin capital letter E with acute
Ê	202	CA	312	11001010	Ê	Latin capital letter E with circumflex
Ë	203	CB	313	11001011	Ë	Latin capital letter E with diaeresis
Ì	204	CC	314	11001100	Ì	Latin capital letter I with grave
Í	205	CD	315	11001101	Í	Latin capital letter I with acute
Î	206	CE	316	11001110	Î	Latin capital letter I with circumflex
Ï	207	CF	317	11001111	Ï	Latin capital letter I with diaeresis
Ð	208	D0	320	11010000	Ð	Latin capital letter Eth
Ñ	209	D1	321	11010001	Ñ	Latin capital letter N with tilde
Ò	210	D2	322	11010010	Ò	Latin capital letter O with grave
Ó	211	D3	323	11010011	Ó	Latin capital letter O with acute
Ô	212	D4	324	11010100	Ô	Latin capital letter O with circumflex
Õ	213	D5	325	11010101	Õ	Latin capital letter O with tilde
Ö	214	D6	326	11010110	Ö	Latin capital letter O with diaeresis
×	215	D7	327	11010111	×	Multiplication sign
Ø	216	D8	330	11011000	Ø	Latin capital letter O with stroke
Ù	217	D9	331	11011001	Ù	Latin capital letter U with grave
Ú	218	DA	332	11011010	Ú	Latin capital letter U with acute
Û	219	DB	333	11011011	Û	Latin capital letter U with circumflex
Ü	220	DC	334	11011100	Ü	Latin capital letter U with diaeresis
Ý	221	DD	335	11011101	Ý	Latin capital letter Y with acute
Þ	222	DE	336	11011110	Þ	Latin capital letter Thorn
ß	223	DF	337	11011111	ß	Latin small letter sharp s
à	224	E0	340	11100000	à	Latin small letter a with grave
á	225	E1	341	11100001	á	Latin small letter a with acute
â	226	E2	342	11100010	â	Latin small letter a with circumflex
ã	227	E3	343	11100011	ã	Latin small letter a with tilde
ä	228	E4	344	11100100	ä	Latin small letter a with diaeresis
å	229	E5	345	11100101	å	Latin small letter a with ring above
æ	230	E6	346	11100110	æ	Latin small letter ae
ç	231	E7	347	11100111	ç	Latin small letter c with cedilla
è	232	E8	350	11101000	è	Latin small letter e with grave
é	233	E9	351	11101001	é	Latin small letter e with acute
ê	234	EA	352	11101010	ê	Latin small letter e with circumflex
ë	235	EB	353	11101011	ë	Latin small letter e with diaeresis
ì	236	EC	354	11101100	ì	Latin small letter i with grave
í	237	ED	355	11101101	í	Latin small letter i with acute
î	238	EE	356	11101110	î	Latin small letter i with circumflex
ï	239	EF	357	11101111	ï	Latin small letter i with diaeresis
ð	240	F0	360	11110000	ð	Latin small letter eth
ñ	241	F1	361	11110001	ñ	Latin small letter n with tilde
ò	242	F2	362	11110010	ò	Latin small letter o with grave
ó	243	F3	363	11110011	ó	Latin small letter o with acute
ô	244	F4	364	11110100	ô	Latin small letter o with circumflex
õ	245	F5	365	11110101	õ	Latin small letter o with tilde
ö	246	F6	366	11110110	ö	Latin small letter o with diaeresis
÷	247	F7	367	11110111	÷	Division sign
ø	248	F8	370	11111000	ø	Latin small letter o with stroke
ù	249	F9	371	11111001	ù	Latin small letter u with grave
ú	250	FA	372	11111010	ú	Latin small letter u with acute
û	251	FB	373	11111011	û	Latin small letter u with circumflex
ü	252	FC	374	11111100	ü	Latin small letter u with diaeresis
ý	253	FD	375	11111101	ý	Latin small letter y with acute
þ	254	FE	376	11111110	þ	Latin small letter thorn
ÿ	255	FF	377	11111111	ÿ	Latin small letter y with diaeresis

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