How to find a character

You know the character exists. You can picture it in your head — the upside-down question mark, the half-arrow with a stroke, the Greek letter that looks like a backwards N. The question is how to get from "I want that one" to a character you can copy into your document. There are five strategies. Each one is better than the others for a specific kind of search; together they cover almost every case.

By name

The fastest method when you can describe the character in words. Every codepoint in Unicode has an official name like LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A or HEAVY BLACK HEART or ROCKET. The names are in English, exhaustively descriptive, and written in capital letters in the standard. Paste a fragment of the name — "snowman", "heart", "em dash" — into the search box at the top of any page on this site, and the matching character pages appear.

The naming conventions are worth knowing for better searches:

• Letters with diacritics are named by their base letter and the diacritic: LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE for é, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH TILDE for Ñ.
• Currency signs are named after their currency: EURO SIGN, POUND SIGN, YEN SIGN.
• Punctuation is named by appearance: LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK, INVERTED QUESTION MARK, HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS.
• Symbols are named by what they depict and (where ambiguous) what they mean: BLACK STAR, INFINITY, GREEK SMALL LETTER PI.
• Emoji names describe what is shown: FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY, EARTH GLOBE EUROPE-AFRICA, ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING.

By codepoint

The fastest method when you already know the number. Unicode codepoints are written as U+ followed by hexadecimal digits — U+2603 for SNOWMAN, U+1F4A9 for PILE OF POO. Type the codepoint into the search box on this site and the character page opens directly. The codepoint converter accepts U+XXXX, decimal, 0xXX, and the glyph itself and converts between all four.

Codepoint search is most useful when you have seen the number quoted somewhere — in a stack trace, a regex, a CSS escape, a JSON string. ☃ in JavaScript, ☃ in HTML, \N{SNOWMAN} in Python, and the literal U+2603 all point at the same character: ☃.

By pasting

The fastest method when you already have the character in another document and want to look up its details. Paste the glyph itself — ☃, é, 𒀀 — into the search box on this site or into the character inspector. The inspector decomposes any string into its constituent codepoints with names, blocks, and byte lengths.

Pasting works especially well for sequences that look like one character but are not — emoji ZWJ sequences, combining diacritics, scripts that use vowel marks. The inspector reveals the structure that the rendering hides.

By category

The fastest method when you do not know what you are looking for but can name the family. Unicode partitions every character into a general category (letter, mark, number, punctuation, symbol, separator, other) and assigns it to a block (Basic Latin, Arrows, Currency Symbols, etc.) and a script (Latin, Greek, Devanagari, etc.). Browsing the right index narrows 154,998 characters to a handful of pages.

• All blocks — 327 named ranges organised by codepoint.
• All categories — the 30 Unicode general categories with example characters.
• All scripts — the 168 writing systems, modern and historic.
• Character browser — landing page for all character detail pages.

Common shortcuts: arrows live in U+2190–U+21FF, currency in U+20A0–U+20CF, mathematical operators in U+2200–U+22FF, general punctuation in U+2000–U+206F, smiley faces in U+1F600–U+1F64F.

By typing on macOS

macOS has three built-in ways to type characters outside the keyboard, plus a layer of system shortcuts for common diacritics.

• Character ViewerThe system-wide picker. Open with Ctrl+Cmd+Space or from Edit › Emoji & Symbols. Search by name; the matched characters appear with category and font preview. Double-click to insert.
• Press-and-hold accentsHold a letter key for half a second on a US keyboard and a popover offers diacritic variants. Hold e to choose between è, é, ê, ë, ē, ė, ę. Press the number under the variant or click it.
• Option-key combosOption+e then e = é. Option+u then u = ü. Option+n then n = ñ. Option+Shift+- = —. Option+2 = ™. Option+g = ©.
• Unicode Hex InputEnable from System Settings › Keyboard › Input Sources › Unicode Hex Input. Hold Option and type the four-hex-digit codepoint. Option+2603 = ☃.

By typing on Windows

• Emoji and symbol pickerWin+. (period) or Win+; (semicolon) opens the system picker with tabs for emoji, kaomoji, GIFs, and symbols. Search by name in the search box.
• Character MapRun charmap.exe from the Start menu. A grid of every glyph in the selected font; click Select then Copy. The Advanced view checkbox enables search by Unicode name and shows the codepoint.
• Alt codesHold Alt and type the decimal codepoint on the numeric keypad (Num Lock on). Alt+0233 = é, Alt+0169 = ©. Requires a numeric keypad; will not work on laptops without one.
• Alt+X in WordIn Microsoft Word, type a hex codepoint and press Alt+X. The codepoint is replaced by the corresponding character. Type 2603Alt+X = ☃.

By typing on Linux

• Ctrl-Shift-UPress Ctrl+Shift+u, type the hex codepoint, press Enter (or release the modifier). Works in GTK applications system-wide. Ctrl+Shift+u 2603 Enter = ☃.
• Compose keyConfigure a Compose key in keyboard settings (Right Alt, Caps Lock, or Menu key are common choices). Press Compose then a short sequence: Compose ' e = é. Compose o c = ©. The full mapping is in /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose.
• GNOME CharactersThe bundled character browser on GNOME desktops. Search by name; click to copy.
• KDE KCharSelectThe equivalent on KDE. Browse by block or search by name; supports Unicode 15.0 in recent versions.

By typing on iOS

• Long-press accentsHold a letter key on the on-screen keyboard for a moment and a popover shows accented variants. Hold e for è é ê ë ē ė ę. Works for most Latin letters and for some punctuation (- shows em dash and en dash).
• Emoji keyboardTap the globe or smiley icon next to the spacebar. Search by name in the search field at the top; recent emoji appear first.
• Hardware keyboardOn a Bluetooth keyboard connected to iPad or iPhone, hold the letter key for the popover, or use Option-key combos as on macOS.

By typing on Android

• Gboard long-pressHold any letter to see accented variants. Hold the period key for additional punctuation, including em dash. Hold $ for other currency symbols.
• Gboard emoji and symbol barTap the smiley to open emoji, symbol, GIF, and sticker tabs. Search by name across emoji.
• Unicode Pad appsSeveral third-party keyboards (Unicode Pad, Multiling O Keyboard) provide direct codepoint entry by hex. Type the codepoint and the character appears.

What to remember

If you can describe it, search by name. If you have the number, search by codepoint. If you have the glyph already, paste it. If you do not know what you want, browse the relevant block or category. If you need to type it without the picker, learn the shortcut for your platform. The five strategies collectively cover almost every case; once you know which one to reach for, finding a character takes seconds.