Generally Symbols like (all these symbols have unique ASCII code) ♥ (heart), ☺ (Smile), ²(Square), ♂(male), π (pi)…etc. are not present on the keyboard. When you are writing something related to Mathematics in MS-Word you will have the chance to pick up or insert mathematical symbols like π (pi), Σ (Sigma), Θ(Theta), α(alpha) but when you move to the other word editors you will not have the chance to insert those symbols with ease.
Once upon a time when we wrote an article involving Mathematical equations, for that, we have inserted Math equations using MS-word but was not able to publish that post as those equations were not showing up in the post. Then we thought of an idea of how to type such symbols using Normal keyboard on any editor such that they can be displayed as normal text.
Here we will see that trick to type those symbols(ASCII code), such that they can be inserted anywhere may be in notepad, in web, in social media messages and everywhere.
The trick is that they all are the symbols that are present in the list of ASCII Codes. The term ASCII is very familiar to the Programmers and people who are concerned with Computer Sciences. If you are not one among them then let’s see, what actually ASCII codes and ASCII values are?
What are ASCII Characters or Codes?
ASCII stands for “American Standard Code for Information Interchange”. And it is a standard notation which assigns a unique value to each and every character which is in use such that it is a standard notation followed throughout the world and this remains standard in each and every computer and Program compilers.
ASCII List of Codes has totally 256 characters, starting from 0 to 255 and each & every number is assigned with a unique character. Out of the 256 character set, the first 128 are often called ASCII characters and the next 128 as Extended ASCII characters.
These codes can be typed with any keyboard and in any text editor but you need to look after the Encoding of the file for that you can adjust when you type ASCII codes. (Your computer instructs you how to switch to required Encoding).
To type an ASCII code character just type Left side Alt + ASCII value of the character from the Numpad e.g., If you want to type ♥ (heart) just press the left side Alt button and then type the number assigned with that character. Here the number assigned with the symbol ♥ (heart) is 3 so type Alt + 3 → character assigned with 3 (♥). [Remember numbers to be typed only from Numpad].
In this way you can type any symbol which you want and the ASCII code list contains almost all the symbols which are used generally.
This trick helps us to use a different types of symbols for Conversation in social media, typing Mathematical symbols in text etc. There is a square symbol also in this list of codes which helps us to type square ( ²) easily. And still there are different varieties of symbols which you might not have used even, you can try them and have fun.
Following below you can find the ASCII code table, which you can refer for different ASCII characters. If you have any questions/suggestion you can let us know through the comment section.
