how do you get the pound sign on keyboard

[jawad7]

hi,

i'm very confused at the minute. recently invester in an imac G4 17" and only today i have needed to use the pound sign. but for some reason i can't appear to find it on my keyboard. i can find the $ and € but unfortunately no pound.

i live in the uk, so my imac would be uk specification.

help much appreciated.

 

[amnesiac1984]

hi,

i'm very confused at the minute. recently invester in an imac G4 17" and only today i have needed to use the pound sign. but for some reason i can't appear to find it on my keyboard. i can find the $ and € but unfortunately no pound.

i live in the uk, so my imac would be uk specification.

help much appreciated.

looks like you have a US keyboard, where did you get your iMac from as it should've come with a £ on the keyboard if oyu got in the UK? my UK Pro Keyboard shows a £ sign above the number 3 and you just need to press shift 3 to get a £. ANyone with a US keyboard care to share how you get a £?

 

[idkew]

option-3

£

 

[Mr. Anderson]

I went to finder and did View - Special Characters and found this - £ and this ?

But through a little trial and error - option-3 will get you £

D

 

[Krizoitz]

Does anyone else find it kinda cool that option-3 and shift-3 both give you a pound sign?

option-3 = £
shift-3 = #

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Does anyone else find it kinda cool that option-3 and shift-3 both give you a pound sign?

option-3 = £
shift-3 = #

On U.S. keyboards shift-3 gives you #. Option-3 always works.

 

[t300]

On U.S. keyboards shift-3 gives you #. Option-3 always works.

No, I believe he was refering to the fact that they both gave you "pound," the pound sterling and the number pound.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

No, I believe he was refering to the fact that they both gave you "pound," the pound sterling and the number pound.

I guess I just wrongly interpreted the post, if that's the case. I thought this thread was about getting the British pound symbol on a Mac keyboard

 

[IrishGold]

looks like a bunch of messed up L's

or even a tired E... lol

 

[jawad7]

thanks for your help guys. just to check, where is the pound sign on the UK apple keyboards?

i'm going to get hold of a UK spec keyboard.

 

[Mord]

the same place

what is the symbol on your 3 key ? a #?

 

[amnesiac1984]

thanks for your help guys. just to check, where is the pound sign on the UK apple keyboards?

i'm going to get hold of a UK spec keyboard.

a British keyboard will have £ visible above the 3 on the same key.

the same place # is on a US keyboard.!

 

[Squire]

a British keyboard will have £ visible above the 3 on the same key.

the same place # is on a US keyboard.!

So, is option-3 on a UK keyboard this (#) "pound" then?

Does anyone else find it kinda cool that option-3 and shift-3 both give you a pound sign?

option-3 = £
shift-3 = #

I understand and think it's cool, too. They probably did it so it (whichever "pound" you want) would be easy to remember. I wonder if...(just hit the Apple key and '3' to see if it would give me lb but got redirected to another page.)

Squire

 

[Pcy]

i'm going to get hold of a UK spec keyboard.

If shift - 3 is giving you # rather £, with new keyboard it'll be exactly the same whatever the keys say, you'd have to go to Input in the International in System Preferences and change to British.
You can do this with the keyboard you've got to be able to use shift-3 for £

 

[kylos]

So, is option-3 on a UK keyboard this (#) "pound" then?



I understand and think it's cool, too. They probably did it so it (whichever "pound" you want) would be easy to remember. I wonder if...(just hit the Apple key and '3' to see if it would give me lb but got redirected to another page.)

Squire

In Safari, that will open the third bookmark in your bookmarks bar.

 

[Abstract]

How do you insert other symbols that you may need but can't find on the keyboard?

I usually just click on the little flag on the toolbar at the top of the screen, and go to "Show Character Palette". Then I find the character I need and click on "Insert".

In Windows, I know that by holding "Alt" then pressing "0163" using the number pad, where 0163 is the ASCII code (or is it Unicode) for the £ symbol. Is there an equivalent way to do this on an Apple? Sorry, but I never really thought to ask before.

 

[Squire]

How do you insert other symbols that you may need but can't find on the keyboard?

I usually just click on the little flag on the toolbar at the top of the screen, and go to "Show Character Palette". Then I find the character I need and click on "Insert".

In Windows, I know that by holding "Alt" then pressing "0163" using the number pad, where 0163 is the ASCII code (or is it Unicode) for the £ symbol. Is there an equivalent way to do this on an Apple? Sorry, but I never really thought to ask before.

When you mouse over the characters in that palette, it gives the unicode and a code after UTF8. What you actually do with that code(s), I don't know.


Squire

<edit> I found this after typing "Character Palette" in OSX help.

You can also type special characters and symbols by pressing combinations of keys on your keyboard. To see what keys to press, turn on the Keyboard Viewer in the Input Menu pane of International preferences, and then choose Show Keyboard Viewer from the input menu in the menu bar. Press the Shift, Option, or Option and Shift keys simultaneously to see the characters that are available. To type a character, press the modifier key (or keys) and the key on your keyboard that's in the same location as the character you want to type in the Keyboard Viewer.

I'm not sure I understand that. Maybe because it's past my bedtime.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

But they might work on you mac, but if you try and post them you get nothing..... i.e. - they show up as I type.....

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??

 

[Doctor Q]

How do you insert other symbols that you may need but can't find on the keyboard?

I usually just click on the little flag on the toolbar at the top of the screen, and go to "Show Character Palette". Then I find the character I need and click on "Insert".

In Windows, I know that by holding "Alt" then pressing "0163" using the number pad, where 0163 is the ASCII code (or is it Unicode) for the £ symbol. Is there an equivalent way to do this on an Apple? Sorry, but I never really thought to ask before.

In that same flag menu, pick Show Keyboard Viewer to display the Keyboard Viewer window. Hold Option or Shift-Option to see the special characters available. It will show, for example, that you can press Option-v for a checkmark and Shift-Option-* for a degree symbol ( ° ).

You can click a key to "type" it in the active window or you can use it to see which keys produce which characters so you can type them yourself.

The keys with a highlighted square around them are "lead-in" diacritic marks, such as the acute accent and tilde. You press them, followed by the letter they are to appear over. For example, Option-e followed by u will give you acute accented u ( ú ).

Once you know the keystrokes for the symbols you frequently use, you won't need the Keyboard Viewer window open to use them.

Most of the layout choices are easy to learn, e.g., checkmark is on the v key because it looks like a v. It's certainly a lot better than typing ALT and a numeric code!

 

[bousozoku]

But they might work on you mac, but if you try and post them you get nothing..... i.e. - they show up as I type.....

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??

I'm not sure what you were trying to post but, what about this? ¡™£¢åß∂ƒΩ≈ç√

 

[ebow]

Most of the layout choices are easy to learn, e.g., checkmark is on the v key because it looks like a v. It's certainly a lot better than typing ALT and a numeric code!

Amen! I can't believe the crack-head Windows developers expect people to memorize three or four digit numbers just to get commonly-used extended characters. Wait, scratch that, I do believe it--it's the Windows Way (I'd put a TM mark in here but I'm on XP at the moment, and there's no way in hell I'm looking up some code or going off to character map; where's Option-2 when I need it?).

Anyway, yeah, you can figure out a lot of the extended characters by looking at the main or secondary labels of the keys. Want an inverted exclamation point? Option-1, since Shift-1 gives a regular one. Same for the inverted question mark. The asterisk can be used as a bullet, so bullets are Option-8. Taking it one step further, the degree symbol is a raised round character, similar to the round-ish asterisk, so it's located at Option-Shift-8. So a bullet can be found at Want the 'c' symbol for cents? Look for the dollar sign. That double-s German letter? Option-s, I believe. By the way, that "check mark" at Option-v is really a square root symbol. But it lookes like a vee-kinda-check-thing, right? So Option-v it is. Granted, not all are completely logical, and some take some imagination, but I certainly miss it when I'm in need of extended characters on Windows.

(note: all examples are from memory, so one or two may be wrong. also, all examples refer to US English keyboards.)

 

[bousozoku]

Amen! I can't believe the crack-head Windows developers expect people to memorize three or four digit numbers just to get commonly-used extended characters. Wait, scratch that, I do believe it--it's the Windows Way (I'd put a TM mark in here but I'm on XP at the moment, and there's no way in hell I'm looking up some code or going off to character map; where's Option-2 when I need it?).
...

It was all started long before Windows with the original IBM PC and back then, it was more appropriate to enter little codes to get the real thing later. WYSIWYG was a few years away. Anyone who used Wordstar 3.3 on CP/M can tell you that.

 

[Doctor Q]

I've been known to cheat when I didn't remember a keystroke. I hold down Option or Shift-Option and run my hand along the number row or the QWERTY row, ASDF row, or ZXCV row. I get lots of symbols to choose from and I pick the one I want and erase the rest. Usually, I remember which row I want so I don't have to guess. I find this method faster than opening the Keyboard Viewer!

 

[realityisterror]

maybe a little white-out and a sharpie will help you find it??
choose your own location...

reality

 

[Abstract]

Well the ALT + numeric code makes sense to me because it uses ASCII codes. This is why ALT + 0065 will give you the letter "a". The codes given in "Character Palette" in OSX...now THOSE don't make sense to me. Maybe they're in Hexadecimal or something......I really don't know. I'm not a computer whizz (don't ask me why I know ASCII codes).