• Character Map Manual

Character Map Manual

1. Introduction

The Character Map application allows you to insert special characters into a document or a text field. Character Map provides accented characters, mathematical symbols, special symbols, and punctuation marks. Use Character Map to access characters that are not available on your keyboard.

Character Map displays all the characters are available in all of the language scripts on your system, using the Unicode character set. Unicode is a character set standard with the goal to include all of the characters that are used in all of the written languages in the world.

2. Getting Started

2.1. To Start Character Map

You can start Character Map in the following ways:

Applications menu

Choose Accessories ▸ Character Map.

Command line

Execute the following command: gnome-character-map

2.2. When You Start Character Map

When you start Character Map, the following window is displayed.

Figure 1 Character Map Window

The Character Map window contains the following elements:

Menubar

The menus on the menubar contain most of the commands that you need to work with Character Map.

Toolbar

The toolbar contains a drop-down list of fonts, font style buttons, and a zoom spin box.

Display area

The display area contains the following components:

  • Script or Unicode Block list box
  • Character Table tabbed section
  • Character Details tabbed section
  • Text to copy text box
  • Copy button
Statusbar

The statusbar displays the currently selected character's Unicode code point and Unicode character name.

3. Usage

3.1. To Change the Character-Set List

To list the character sets by script name, choose View ▸ By Script.

To list the character sets by Unicode block, choose View ▸ By Unicode Block.

3.2. To Create a Text String

To create a text string in the Text to copy field, perform the following steps:

  1. Select a character set from the Script or Unicode Block list box.

  2. Insert characters in one of the following ways:

    • Double-click on a character button in the Character Table tabbed section, to insert the character in the Text to copy field.
    • Click on a character button in the Character Table tabbed section, then press Return to insert the character in the Text to copy field.
    • Click on a character button in the Character Table tabbed section, then drag the character to the Text to copy field.
    • Click on the Text to copy field to give focus to the field. If a text string is already in the field, click on the text string at the point where you want to insert the character. Press a character key on your keyboard to insert that character into the field.

3.3. To Copy and Paste Your Text String into an Application

To copy and paste the text string from the Text to copy field into an application, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Copy. If none or all of the text string is selected, all of the string is copied to the clipboard. If a portion of the string is selected, only that portion is copied.
  2. Switch to your application and choose Edit ▸ Paste.

When you paste the contents of the Text to copy field into other applications, the text string appears in the current character set of the application.

If your text string contains non-visible characters, you can only insert the text string into applications that support the full character set.

3.4. To Search for a Character

To search for a character, perform the following steps:

  1. Choose Search ▸ Find. The Find dialog opens.

  2. Enter text to search for in the Search field.

    • Select Match whole word to only find complete words that match your text.
    • By default, only the character names are searched. Select Search in character details to search in other parts of a character's description, such as notes, equivalents, and approximate equivalents.

  3. Click Next to find the first occurrence of your text after the currently selected character. Character Map selects the character it finds.

  4. Click Next to find the next matching character. Alternatively, choose Search ▸ Find Next.

  5. Click Previous to find the previous matching character. Alternatively, choose Search ▸ Find Previous.

3.5. To Browse Through all Characters

To browse through the character map, use the Go menu.

You can browse the character map by individual character, and script or by Unicode block. This depends on whether the character map is showing scripts or Unicode blocks. To change this, choose View ▸ By Script or View ▸ By Unicode Block.

The following keys also work for browsing the character map:

  • Press the arrow keys on the keyboard to browse through the characters.
  • Press the Page Up and Page Down keys to browse through the characters page by page.
  • Press the Home key to select the first character in the Unicode sequence. To select the last character, press the End key.

3.6. To Display Detailed Information About a Character

To display detailed information about a character, perform the following steps:

  1. Select a character set from the Script or Unicode Block list box. Example: Basic Latin
  2. Select a character from the Character Table tabbed section. Example: B
  3. Click on the Character Details tabbed section.

The Character Details tabbed section displays the following information about the selected character:

  • Unicode code point

    Example: U+0042

  • Unicode character name

    Example: LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B

  • General Character Properties

    • Unicode category

      Example: Letter, Uppercase

  • Various Useful Representations

    • UTF-8 encoding

      Example: 0x42

    • UTF-16 encoding

      Example: 0x0042

    • C octal escaped UTF-8 encoding

      Example: \102

    • XML decimal entity

      Example: "&#66"

  • Annotations and Cross References

    Example: U+212C SCRIPT CAPITAL B

    Click on the link to display the details for the referenced character.

3.7. To Change the Format of a Character

To change the format of a character, perform any of the following steps:

  • To change the font, select a font from the font drop-down list.
  • To change the font type to bold type, click on the Bold button.
  • To change the font type to italic type, click on the Italic button.
  • To increase the font size, choose View ▸ Zoom In or use the zoom spin box.
  • To decrease the font size, choose View ▸ Zoom Out or use the zoom spin box.
  • To display normal font size, choose View ▸ Normal Size.
  • To magnify the selected character, press Shift.

3.8. To Change the Format of the Character Table

To change the format of the character table, choose View ▸ Snap Columns to Power of Two.

Character Map changes the Character Table tabbed section so that the number of columns is a power of two, for example, two columns, four columns, eight columns, and so on. The number of columns depends on the size of the window and the size of the font.