How to write special characters in Windows 11

There are times when we are with our computer with Windows 11 writing and we need some special characters that the keyboard does not have directly or others in which to place it we have to combine several keys and it may even be the case that we do not find them. Let’s see how to fix it.

Special characters (also known as diacritics) may be common in the language in which we write, but there may also be some that we almost never use or that do not directly exist in the language we use.

If, for example, we are trying to learn another language, we usually see websites where hundreds of characters appear that we do not know how to put them or we find a document in which we must write some of them. Something that is proven is that adding them in Windows is less comfortable than in Mac.

That is why it is interesting to know how we can use these space characters in Windows 11, in case we desperately need it and we cannot continue doing our task because we do not know how to write a specific one.

Touch keyboard

The easiest way to add special signs in Windows is to enable the touch keyboard.

The touch keyboard would appear automatically if we were using a Windows tablet or a PC in tablet mode.

As it is normal that we do not have a touch screen, we can use the keyboard icon that appears in the task bar on the right side near the date.

Let’s see how we can enable it:

• Click on the start menu and then enter Setting.
• Then we will time and language to continue to Writing.
• Inside we will see and expand where it says Touch keyboard.
• we must mark Show touch keyboard when no keyboard is connected.

There is another way to enter the touch keyboard, as it is that we have just told, it does not work in all versions of Windows 11.

With this option we can even choose how the touch keyboard will look.

• Click on the start menu and enter Setting.
• Then we will Personalization.
• Inside we click on Virtual keyboard.
• The moment we enter we have different interesting parts like keyboard Theme, which is where we will put the one we like in a few options.
• We can also modify the keyboard sizeif the keys have backgroundthe key size and of course launch touch keyboard.

This is the moment in which we can use the virtual keyboard to get the characters we have talked about.

When we want to use them, we must do the following:

• Once we have the virtual keyboard on the screen, we do a long press (with the mouse button) on the letter you want to use.
• then we’ll see various additional keys that show the ways you can write that letter with different symbols.
• Just have to select the one we want and it will appear automatically in the document that we want.
• If we want to add an emoji or a GIF, we need to click on the emoji button. (Is he icon with a square and a heart located at the top left of the keyboard).

Characters map

This is a somewhat old method, but it is still quite effective and works quite well.

We talked about adding special characters in Windows using the Characters mapsomething similar to the touch keyboard, but not as well resolved.

To do this we must do the following:

• We select the search icon (the magnifying glass) from the taskbar and type characters.
• Then we select the application Characters map.
• Now we will see what a new window looks like where we will have a bunch of special characters for a specific font type.
• It can be changed by clicking on the drop-down menu at the top.

emoji keyboard

Another keyboard that allows access to special characters is to use the Windows emoji keyboard.

Its main purpose is emojis, that’s clear, but within it there is also room for other types of text.

So we can use it:

• We hold down the windows key Y we press the point.
• Then we’ll see how it looks emoji keyboard at the bottom right of the screen.
• We click on the symbols tab (the fourth starting from the right) or we go down until we find the desired characters.
• Various types of characters can also be skipped using the categories.

United States keyboard

If we speak English and want to use a lot of special characters, we can use the US international keyboard for this purpose.

To add it to Windows we must perform the following steps:

• We are going to Settingthen click on time and language and then in Region and language.
• Now we must go to preferred languages and (assuming we speak US English) click Add a languagewe select English United States) and then Following.
• At that moment it will download language, text to speech, speech recognition and handwriting. We must not mark any option that is not already marked-
• Next, we select the three points on the right and choose language options.
• Let’s go to the Keyboards section, in which it probably only contains an icon with the label United States QWERTY.
• That’s the keymap we’re using right now.
• We click on the button Add a keyboard to the right of this option.
• In the pop-up menu that appears, we scroll to United States-International/QWERTY and we click.

Now, we will always have the option to use the US standard keyboard or the US international keyboard.

If we want to know which of the two will be active, we can see it in the lower right side. Right next to where we have the connection (WiFi or local) we should read ENG/US or ENG/INTL.

If we want to switch between one and the other, we must click where we have indicated so that a pop-up menu allows us to switch from one to the other.

This international keyboard has two ways to offer us special characters:

• Using the alt key from the right in combination with the appropriate letter to get the combinations used.
• Yes press the symbol that we want to use and then the letter with which we want to write it.

As you have been able to read, having the special symbols in Windows 11 is easier than it seemed at first.

Yes, it is true that normally we will not use it much, but knowing how to use them for a given moment will take away a lot of headaches.