# Inserting Special Characters

/text/shared/guide/insert_specialchar.xhp
characters; special
inserting; special characters
special characters
text; inserting special characters
accents
compose key to insert special characters
Inserting Special Characters
This function allows you to insert special characters, such as check marks, boxes, and telephone symbols, into your text.
- To view a selection of all characters, choose Insert - Special Character.
- In the large selection field click the desired character or several characters in succession. The characters are displayed at the bottom of the dialog. When you close the dialog with OK, all displayed characters in the selected font are inserted in the current document.
- In any text input field (such as the input fields in the Find & Replace dialog) you can press Shift+Command Ctrl+S to open the Special Characters dialog.
At present there are three ways of entering letters with accents directly from the keyboard.
Solaris:
Using a Sun keyboard. First press the Compose key to the right of the space bar, then enter the first and second modifiers.
Linux / NetBSD:
Using the dead-keys. In an xterm window first press the (´) or (`) key. The character should not appear on the screen. Now press a letter, such as "e". The e is given an accent, é or è. If not, then check in the XF86Config file if a "nodeadkeys" XkbdVariant has been loaded there and replace it. You may also have set the environment variable SAL_NO_DEADKEYS, which deactivates the dead-keys.
All Unix systems:
(Alt Graph) as additional compose key. The (Alt Graph) key can work in $[officename] like the Compose key, if you set the environment variable SAL_ALTGR_COMPOSE. The (Alt Graph) key must trigger a mode_switch, so, for example, xmodmap -e "keysym Alt_R = Mode_switch" must be set. First press (Alt Graph), then the first modifier, then the second modifier. The characters are combined as described on a Solaris system in the file /usr/openwin/include/X11/Suncompose.h.
Special Characters
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