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:
๐๐คช๐๐งโโ๏ธ๐ง๐พโโ๏ธ๐ง๐ป๐ต๐ฏ๐๐ฒ๐๐ฎ๐๐
In fact, you can type in thousands of different characters, including symbols from games
Chess
โโโโโโโโโโโโ
Tetragram (used in I Ching)
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ etc.
Playing cards
๐ก๐ข๐ฃ๐ค๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ง๐จ๐ฉ๐ช๐ซ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ณโคโงโกโขโ ๏ธโฃ๏ธโฅ๏ธโฆ๏ธetc.
Dice
โโโโโโ
Shogi (Japanese chess)
โโ
Dominos
๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ณ๐ด๐ต๐ถ๐ท๐ธ๐น๐บ๐ป๐ผ๐ฝ๐พ
Zodiac (European)
โ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธ
Gender
โ๏ธโ๏ธโขโฃโคโงโญโฎโฏ
Mahjong
๐๏ธ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ etc.
Legal
ยฎยฉโโขโ
Pictograph
โ๏ธโผโฝโพโ๏ธโ ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโ๏ธโโ๏ธโพ๏ธโฝ๏ธโโ๏ธโต๏ธโ๏ธโฝ๏ธโช๏ธโณ๏ธโบ๏ธ etc.
Money
๏นฉยฅยฃโฌยข โฃโฝโจโจโฉ
You can even type that funky Macintosh symbol for Command โ and Option โฅ.
On a Mac keyboad, typing Shift-Option-k will produce the Apple logo version of an apple, ๏ฃฟ, but it probably wonโt 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 Macโs โcloverleafโ symbol for the Command key can be found by typing in the word โinterest,โ
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, ๏ฃฟ, 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.