Are you at a standstill with a word-processing for a spanish report because of a foolish letter which isn't on your keyboard ? You miss a mathematic operator for your math class ? You would like to be able to write Arabic or Chinese, among others, whitout changing the keyboard configuration ? Or you simply are curious to learn something new in IT ? This class is for you !
Here, you will learn how to use a very practical software, which name is the "charmap", so as to know how to find any character (whether it be "¿", "í", "ஸ", or "됭", among others) which you would miss. Now the character at your disposal won't be limited to the ones present on your keyboard !
Character is simply the name given to the letters, the digits and the other marks we write on the computer.
So there are the letters : "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz", the digits : "0123456789", but also other marks, like the blank " ", or even "䅦", among numerous others !
The characters are sorted by typefaces (Times New Roman, Arial ...) which display differently some marks which have the same meaning. For example : "a" will produce "a" in Times New Roman, but "a" in Arial.
The whole is gathered into a row. The Unicode standard is without doubt the broadest row existing : its size is large of 65536 characters, listing the various characters of the world's countries !
The most simple and the most famous way to type some characters into the screen is ... The keyboard ! But the keyboard isn't extendable, then it just offers some dozens of characters (which is often well enough). So, to get the other characters, we have to find another way. Some word processors enable a choice of special characters, but the most extended choice is the software installed by default on your computer : the charmap !
Well, let's look for this charmap !
On Windows, go in Start -> Program Files -> Accessories -> System tools -> Charmap. Now you're in front of this famous software. Well, it isn't really flashy, but not bad for an application installed by default, isn't it ? It looks like this :
In the pop-up box at the top, there's a broad choice of typefaces. Below it, in the main part, there are all the characters offered by this typeface by default : you can make one of them being bigger by clicking on. Below it, the is a text box which enables to display and copy the choiced characters. And at the bottom, there are sorting tools, which we will see in depth later.
To kidnap a little character, you just have to double-click on it, and it will appear in the text box of the charmap, or even to click on it, keeping the button down, and to drag it to a text box.
I let you discover it a little, I have a drink and I come back !

Ha you're stille there ? You well have got on well ? Well ! Let's get serious !

Sorry ? Ho yes, I'm not thirsty anymore, thanks.

It's lovely, all those characters, but thus, we keep looking for the one which interest us for hours !
That's why we have a little search engine which enables us to sort them efficiently at our disposal !

Let's take an interest in the second pop-up box. First of all, for the ideograms lovers
(chinese, japonese, corean ...), you will find what you're looking for, it's full of !
By gones, I'm
not an expert.
Us, what we're interesting in is the category "Unicode Row" of the box. A little screenshot :
After having clicked on, you're in front of this :
Try "General ponctuation", and you will see.
All the letters are in "Latin", and I let you discover the rest !
One of my software projects is a kind of virtual keyboard which enables to modify in real-time the character typed on the keyboard ! For example, you type "§" and it writes "¡" (exclamation mark backwards, spanish), because you would have defined it sooner !!
For the moment, it is just a project, but I fully intend to take care of it when I am better at IT and when I have more time.
So, keep aware ! 
He we are, everything is in the title !

I hope that you liked this class and that it will be helpful !
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