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7 min fix Updated 8 Aug 2026Beginner

By , IT support technician

Quick Answer

Press Windows key + . in any text box to open the emoji panel. Switch to its Symbols tab for accented letters, currency, dashes, fractions and maths symbols — that tab is where é, £, — and ½ live.

How to Type Emoji, Accents, and Special Characters on Windows ​

Applies to: Windows 11, Windows 10
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-08-08

Summary ​

Every character you have ever hunted for — é, £, —, ½, →, and the entire emoji set — sits behind one keyboard shortcut that most people never find. This article covers the emoji panel and its overlooked Symbols tab, the touch keyboard's press-and-hold accents, the classic Character Map and Insert > Symbol routes, and how to add a second keyboard layout without losing track of where your other keys went.

Before You Start ​

  • A PC running Windows 11 or Windows 10.
  • No admin rights required — everything here is built in.
  • A place to type: an email, a document, a chat message, or a browser search box.

Instructions ​

1. Open the Emoji Panel ​

One shortcut brings up emoji, GIFs, kaomoji and symbols anywhere you can type.

  1. Click into any text field — a Word document, a Teams message, an Outlook email, a browser address bar.
  2. Press Win + . — hold the Windows key and press the full stop. The panel opens next to your cursor. Win + ; does exactly the same thing if the semicolon is the closer key for you.
  3. Type to search. Entering heart narrows the grid to hearts; entering smile narrows it to smiling faces.
  4. Click the character you want, or move to it with the arrow keys and press Enter. It appears at the cursor and the panel stays open so you can pick a second one.
  5. Press Esc to close the panel. Nothing is inserted on the way out.

One honest caveat about emoji: each platform draws its own. The 😀 you send from Windows is redrawn by the recipient's iPhone, Android or Mac, and a plain-text font with no emoji glyphs shows a hollow box instead. The character that arrives is the right one — the picture belongs to the device displaying it.

2. Find Accents, Currency and Maths in the Symbols Tab ​

The panel's Symbols tab is where é, £, — and ½ live, and it answers most "how do I type this" searches.

  1. Open the panel with Win + ..
  2. Look at the row of tabs across the top of the panel: Emoji, GIF, Kaomoji, Symbols and Clipboard history.
  3. Select Symbols. The grid changes from faces to punctuation and letters.
  4. Pick a group from the category strip at the bottom of the panel. The groups are general punctuation, currency symbols, Latin symbols, geometric symbols, math symbols, supplemental symbols and language symbols.
  5. Click the character. It lands at your cursor, and it stays in the panel's recently used row for next time.

Here is where the characters people actually hunt for sit:

What you wantCharactersWhere to find it
Accented lettersé è ê ü ñ çSymbols tab, Latin symbols
Currency£ € ¥ ¢Symbols tab, currency symbols
Dashes and ellipsis— – …Symbols tab, general punctuation
Maths× ÷ ± ≠ ≤Symbols tab, math symbols
Fractions½ ¼ ¾Symbols tab, or search fraction in Character Map (step 4)
Arrows→ ← ↑ ↓Symbols tab, or search arrow in Character Map (step 4)

If one character comes up over and over — a colleague's name with an accent, your company's ™ — copy it once and pin it in clipboard history so Win + V always has it, as covered in How to Use Clipboard History on Windows.

3. Hold a Letter on the Touch Keyboard for Its Accents ​

The on-screen keyboard behaves like a phone: press and hold a letter to reveal its accented versions.

  1. Turn on the taskbar icon if it is not there. On Windows 11: open Settings > Personalization > Taskbar, expand System tray icons, and set Touch keyboard to Always. On Windows 10: right-click an empty part of the taskbar and select Show touch keyboard button.
  2. Select the keyboard icon at the right-hand end of the taskbar. The touch keyboard slides up from the bottom of the screen.
  3. Click into the text field where the character goes, then press and hold a letter key on the touch keyboard. Holding e opens a small row above it showing è é ê ë ē.
  4. Slide to the version you want and release, or click it. The accented letter types at your cursor.
  5. Select the X in the corner of the touch keyboard to close it. To remove the icon again, reverse step 1 — set Touch keyboard to Never on Windows 11, or clear Show touch keyboard button on Windows 10. Nothing else about your keyboard changes.

4. Use Character Map or Insert > Symbol When the Panel Will Not Open ​

Two older routes that still work in apps where the emoji panel does nothing.

Character Map searches every character on the machine by name:

  1. Press Win, type Character Map, and press Enter. The Character Map window opens with a grid of characters.
  2. Choose a font from the Font dropdown at the top. Segoe UI carries almost everything on this page.
  3. Tick Advanced view at the bottom of the window. A Search for box appears.
  4. Type what you want — euro, arrow, one half — and select Search. The grid narrows to matches.
  5. Double-click a character to add it to the Characters to copy box, select Copy, then paste into your document with Ctrl + V.

Insert > Symbol works inside Word and Outlook:

  1. Put the cursor where the character goes.
  2. On the ribbon, select Insert, then Symbol at the right-hand end.
  3. Pick from the small recently used grid, or select More Symbols to open the full Symbol dialog.
  4. In the dialog, set Subset to Latin-1 Supplement. Accented letters, £, ¥, ½, × and ÷ are all in that block.
  5. Select the character, select Insert, then Close. The dialog also shows a Shortcut Key button if you want to assign the character a key combination you will remember.

If you already know an Alt code, it still works. Hold Alt, type 0233 on the numeric keypad, and release for é. That route needs a real numeric keypad with Num Lock on — the number row above the letters does not work for it, which rules out most laptops.

5. Add a Keyboard Layout for Another Language ​

Swap the whole keyboard rather than hunting character by character, if you write in another language regularly.

  1. Open Settings > Time & language > Language & region.
  2. Select the three dots (...) next to your display language, then select Language options.
  3. Under Keyboards, select Add a keyboard. A list of layouts opens.
  4. Select the layout you want. An input indicator appears in the system tray at the right of the taskbar showing the active layout — ENG, for example.
  5. Switch layouts by clicking that indicator, or by holding Win and pressing Space to cycle through the installed ones.

Switching a layout moves more than the accented letters. On a French AZERTY layout, Q and A trade places and the number row needs Shift; on a German layout, Y and Z swap. Nothing is wrong with the hardware — hold Win and press Space until the indicator reads your usual layout again. How to Fix Your Keyboard Typing the Wrong Characters covers the version of this that happens by accident.

To remove a layout, return to the same Keyboards list, select the three dots beside it and choose Remove. Removing a layout takes nothing else with it — the display language, your dictionary and your other layouts are untouched, and you can add it back from step 3 in seconds.

Troubleshooting ​

TIP

The Symbols tab is the part of the emoji panel almost nobody finds. Accented letters, currency, dashes, fractions and maths symbols are all in there, which makes Win + . the one shortcut worth taking away from this page.

Symptom / ErrorPotential CauseSolution
Win + . does nothingCursor is not in a text fieldClick into a text box first — the panel needs somewhere to type. A few older desktop apps ignore it entirely; use Character Map in step 4 for those.
The character inserts as a hollow boxThe font has no drawing for itThe character is correct and will survive copying elsewhere. Select the text and switch it to Segoe UI, which carries almost the whole set.
The keyboard suddenly types the wrong symbolsA layout switched by accidentHold Win and press Space until the tray indicator reads your usual layout. How to Fix Your Keyboard Typing the Wrong Characters covers the stubborn cases.
Alt codes do nothing on a laptopNo numeric keypadAlt codes need a physical numeric keypad with Num Lock on. Use the emoji panel in step 1 or Character Map in step 4 instead.
No keyboard icon on the taskbarThe tray icon is turned offWindows 11: Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > System tray icons, set Touch keyboard to Always. Windows 10: right-click the taskbar and select Show touch keyboard button.
Add a keyboard is greyed outLanguage settings managed by IT policyUse the emoji panel and Character Map, which are not policy-controlled. If you need the layout permanently, ask IT to add it: "Please add the [language] keyboard layout on DEVICE-NAME — I write to clients in that language daily." Your device name is in Settings > System > About.