Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Alt Codes (aka Special Characters)

How do you type special characters?

Here's How:
Each special character is assigned to a number sequence. But they have to be keyed while you hold the alt key down.

Alt-156 will get you £.
Alt-21 will get you §.

So holding Alt down with my left hand, I type in the number sequence on the number pad with my right. Once I lift up the alt key (after finishing the number sequence) the special character appears. I have tested this in World of Warcraft on my PC. I am not sure if this works on a Mac.

Numlock: If you have any problems, make sure your numlock key is on. For those who still have autorun bound to numlock and that suddenly starts you running just hit "w" or "s" to stop you while keeping numlock on. Then, when this is all said and done, remap autorun to Mouse Button 4 (you know the little one on the side by your thumb), if you have it, and thank me in the morning.

Here is a table of special characters you may find useful if you ever have to type a character's name that includes a special character(s):

The Table:

Aá=160
Á=0193
à=133
À=0192
â=131
Â=0194
ä=132
Ä=0196
å=134
Å=0197
ª=166
AEæ=145
Æ=146
Cç=135
Ç=128
Œœ=0156
Œ=0140
Eé=130
É=144
è=138
È=0200
ê=136
Ê=0202
ë=137
Ë=0203
Fƒ=159
Ií=161
Í=0205
ì=141
Ì=0204
î=140
Î=0206
ï=139
Ï=0207
Nñ=164
Ñ=165
Oó=162
Ó=0211
ò=149
Ò=0210
ô=147
Ô=0212
ö=148
Ö=153
º=167
Uú=163
Ú=0218
ù=151
Ù=0217
û=150
Û=0219
Ü=154
Yý=0253
Ý=0221
ÿ=152



Links:
Additional websites with the codes and characters:

  • A table with description of the Unicode/Hexidecimal values.
  • Another table from yellowpipe. (I had originally discovered the three digit codes one by one myself back in the days before you could Google this stuff but I only got through the three digit codes. I found this yellowpipe table helpful to add the four digit codes.)
Blizzard's Naming Policies: (Which generally only say you cannot have a name that is complete "Gibberish")

  • Naming Policy
  • Naming Policy on wow-europe
  • Update (August 2009) - When paying for your name change, Blizzard now says that "Your New Character Name cannot contain special characters and must follow the World of Warcraft Naming Policy." (link)

Some Blue Posts (courtesy of WoW Blue Tracker) about Names with Special Characters:


Now, let's all go report some Gold Sellers!

Although if you've been reading along you know I'm too lazy to do it unless they get snippy...

Update 10/3/2007:

Cyrillic Character Change in Patch 2.2.2
We wanted to inform players whose character names contain letters from the Cyrillic alphabet that they will receive an automatic forced name change upon the release of patch 2.2.2. Allowing the input of Cyrillic characters in names was the result of an accidental code change. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause.

Cyrillic characters will still be usable in the in-game chat, however.

11 comments:

Collin said...

Before I knew you could click a player's name to just send a tell back, I hated those names. If one was LFG and I was forming one, I wouldn't invite just because I was too lazy.

That goes for other names too.. like
xxixiixiPWNZORxxixiiixix, ya know?

Now i've learned the ways... but it still bugs me.

Delaney said...

I agree. Just because we know how, doesn't overcome the lack of desire to type out that name...

Anonymous said...

while you're typing in the chat box, you can shift-click the person's name and it puts it in the box. :] no typing fancy characters needed.

Anonymous said...

btw u can just copy and paste form this site ;)

Reece said...

Been on this post more than once when trying to figure out the atl+number code to look people up on armory. Thanks for the post :)

Anonymous said...

Ÿ
“•³²±°­¯›Ÿëë}èèW☺☻♥♠♦♣○◘•ý²ýÍÇÏÇϯ_ÏåσååÓ{™Óïσσ╟+§£$c○cτÜ7♣+o▐M╝+Ü○xτo☺♂▬o♂♂▬!,7BM•M○Xc♀☺♂♀☺♂☻♥♦♣ ²╜╟√╫°÷≈⌠å∙☼☼☼ÿÖcc7B


i wanted to see how many things i could come up with, couldnt remember the one for special B

Anonymous said...

dendy said...

thanks for sharing!

Seth said...

ß
Alt+0223 for the sharp s. Or B, as americans call it.

spencer said...

http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/keyboards.asp

has all the special charecter secrets.

Anonymous said...

alt 129 gets ü...
That's the one I was looking for but wasn't on the table