Character Map Manual
Character Map is a Unicode character map that allows you to select characters from a table and insert then in to a text string.

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.

Getting Started

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

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

Character Map Window
Shows 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.

Usage

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.

To Create a Text String
To create a text string in the Text to copy field, perform the following steps:
Select a character set from the Script or Unicode Block list box.
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.
Select a character button in the Character Table tabbed section, then press Return to insert the character in the Text to copy field.
Select a character button in the Character Table tabbed section, then click and 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.

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:
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.
Switch to your application and choose Edit Paste, or press shortcut key Ctrl V.
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.

To Search for a Character
To search for a character, perform the following steps:
Choose Search Find, or press shortcut key Ctrl F. The Find dialog opens.
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.
Click Next to find the first occurrence of your text after the currently selected character. Character Map selects the character it finds.
Click Next to find the next matching character. Alternatively, choose Search Find Next, or press shortcut key Ctrl G.
Click Previous to find the previous matching character. Alternatively, choose Search Find Previous, or press shortcut key Shift Ctrl G.

To Browse Through all Characters
To browse through the character map, use the Go menu.
Next character, or press shortcut key Ctrl N.
Previous character, or press shortcut key Ctrl P.
Next script, or press shortcut key Ctrl Page Down.
Previous script, or press shortcut key Ctrl Page Up.
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.

To Display Detailed Information About a Character
To display detailed information about a character, perform the following steps:
Select a character set from the Script or Unicode Block list box. Example: Basic Latin
Select a character from the Character Table tabbed section. Example: B
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.

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, or press shortcut key Alt B.
To change the font type to italic type, click on the Italic button, or press shortcut key Alt I.
To increase the font size, choose View Zoom In or use the zoom spin box, or press shortcut key Ctrl +.
To decrease the font size, choose View Zoom Out or use the zoom spin box, or press shortcut key Ctrl -.
To display normal font size, choose View Normal Size, or press shortcut key Ctrl =.
To magnify the selected character, hold Shift.

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.