You can now check boxes next to any commonly used Unicode sets you might want to use in documents or email. Click the gear icon in the upper left and choose Customize List and expand the Symbols section. The Character Viewer lets you add sets to select from.īut that’s not the semi-hidden part. The Character Viewer that appears shows emoji by default, and with an input cursor in any app or form field that lets you type in text, you can double click emoji to insert them or drag them into a document. Now, in the menu bar, click the tiny palette that has a command (⌘) key in it and select Show Emoji & Symbols. There’s a semi-hidden way to access special symbol sets in Unicode, and a somewhat obscure method of searching for specific symbols across all of macOS’s included Unicode characters.įirst, open the Keyboard preference pane and make sure that “Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar” is checked.
And nearly all of it is available within macOS-but not always easy to find. Unicode is a massive, sprawling effort that pairs a number to every unique character in a language, every punctuation mark, every math symbol, and much more.
