The Macintosh operating system (and the iPad and iPhone operating systems) come with a whole bunch of special characters, allowing you to write in English, French, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, and dozens of other languages. You can also type special symbols used in chemistry, physics, and mathematical equations. And of course you can also type in emoji, in case you want to show your emotional side or a fondness for food or animals or something else:
😇🤪😞🧞♀️🧜🏾♀️🧚🏻🐵🐯🐗🐲🍕🌮🍜🍉
In fact, you can type in thousands of different characters, including symbols from games
Chess
♟♔♕♖♗♘♙♚♛♜♝♞
Tetragram (used in I Ching)
𝌆𝌇𝌈𝌉𝌊𝌋𝌌𝌍𝌎𝌏𝌐𝌑𝌒𝌓𝌔𝌕𝌖𝌗𝌘 etc.
Playing cards
🂡🂢🂣🂤🂥🂦🂧🂨🂩🂪🂫🂬🂭🂮🂱🂲🂳♤♧♡♢♠︎♣︎♥︎♦︎etc.
Dice
⚀⚁⚂⚃⚄⚅
Shogi (Japanese chess)
☗☖
Dominos
🀱🀲🀳🀴🀵🀶🀷🀸🀹🀺🀻🀼🀽🀾
Zodiac (European)
♈︎♉︎♊︎♋︎♌︎♍︎♎︎♏︎♐︎♑︎♒︎♓︎
Gender
♀︎♂︎⚢⚣⚤⚧⚭⚮⚯
Mahjong
🀄︎🀀🀁🀂🀃🀅🀇🀈🀉🀊🀋🀌🀍🀎🀏🀐🀑🀒🀓🀔🀕🀖🀗🀘🀙 etc.
Legal
®©℗™℠
Pictograph
☀︎☼☽☾☁︎⛅︎☂︎☔︎☃︎⛄︎☕︎✌︎✍︎✎✂︎⚾︎⚽︎✇✈︎⛵︎⚓︎⛽︎⛪︎⛳︎⛺︎ etc.
Money
﹩¥£€¢ ₣₽₨₨₩
You can even type that funky Macintosh symbol for Command ⌘ and Option ⌥.
On a Mac keyboad, typing Shift-Option-k will produce the Apple logo version of an apple, , but it probably won’t display that way on anything other than an Apple product.
How to find these characters: on the Mac, go to Settings > Keyboard, and press the Edit button on the line for Input Sources:
From the list of options, select whatever you want, but in particular, select Show Input menu in menu bar:
This will add a new item to the menu bar at the top of the screen. From it, select Show Emoji & Symbols, and a box will appear that will allow you to search for a character by name, or scroll through characters and emoji (see the menu at the bottom of the box that shows different categories of things if you prefer to scroll). Note that the Mac’s “cloverleaf” symbol for the Command key can be found by typing in the word “interest,”
When you print these various symbols and characters on paper, the results will be WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). In email, messages, or on web pages, however, the viewer will see only characters that can be reproduced on their device. For example, the Apple logo apple, , is not viewable on Windows or Android devices, and emoji will differ depending on the device. Even on a Mac, emoji in Safari will look different than the same emoji in Chrome.