Windows includes a utility named Character Map, but it's not installed by default and it's not the easiest of tools to get to grips with. In fact, in Windows XP, a large chunk of its usefulness has gone with the removal of those handy ALT+xxxx shortcuts. Finding and using special characters in your documents should be quick and easy, so we wrote Characters.
Characters lives in your system tray, and is opened by pressing Ctrl+Shift+#. (This is a system-wide hotkey, so it doesn't matter what application you're using at the time.) Keeping Ctrl+Shift pressed, cycle through all the 'a' variations by pressing the 'A' key, or the 'e' variations by pressing the 'E' key, and so on. Symbols such as ® and 1/2 are available via the 'Z' key. When you see the character you need, either remember its displayed ALT+xxxx hotkey and close Characters by pressing ESC, or press the spacebar to copy the character to the clipboard (which closes Characters automatically).
Note: You can find the program under Accessories & Utilities.
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