How To Find Missing Symbols On Your Mac Keyboard

If you are using an input source setting that doesn't match your physical keyboard, it can be hard to figure out how to type some basic characters. Here's how to check to see exactly what character each key on your keyboard maps to.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to find out how to type characters with your keyboard even when the characters that you type don't match the characters printed on the key. 
This is a common question I get and you see posted to Forum. Somebody wants to type a character but they can't figure out how. It is not a special symbol or emoji or anything like that. As a matter of fact it may be a character that's actually printed on the keyboard but when they try to press that key or maybe Shift plus that key, that's not what they get when they type. Usually this happens when you have your Mac set to use a keyboard for a language different than the one that is printed on your keyboard. 
For instance, you may have a US Keyboard but maybe you're in Quebec Canada and you have your keyboard set to French Canadian. In that case you may find that what you typed doesn't match what you see on the keys. For instance I'm going to type the Slash key. The one on US keyboards that is to the right of the period. When I do that you can see I don't get the slash symbol. If I type the left square bracket I get this. If I type Shift and 2 I get this, not the at @ symbol. This is because I've changed my settings. You can actually see that up here. In the Menu Bar I've got this little menu here and you can see how I can switch between these two keyboards. You may or may not see this in your Menu Bar depending on your settings. 
Let's investigate further. Going into the System Settings here I can go down to Keyboard and in Keyboard I look for Text Input. Then it shows Input Sources. Here you can see it says US and Canadian PC. If I click Edit then I get a list here on the left. Now you may only see one keyboard listed here. But I've got 2 meaning I've told my Mac I'm going to switch back and forth between two different keyboards layouts. If I use the US Keyboard layout then the letters printed on my keyboard will match what I type. If I choose the Canadian PC Keyboard then things are going to be a little different. This control up here allows me to switch between them without going to System Settings. So if I go back to All Input Sources here I get all these different settings for the keyboard and one of the things here is Show Input Menu In Menu Bar. So that determines whether or not that is there. 
So now when I have it set to Canadian PC I type Shift 2 I get this. But if I change to US and I type Shift 2 I get the @ symbol which since I happen to have a US Keyboard that's what is actually printed there above the 2 on that key. 
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So you should get exactly what you see on your keyboard as long as your Input Source settings on your Mac are set to the same as your actual physical keyboard. But if you switch to another Input Source, like this, then you can use the keyboard you've got to type like it was a different keyboard. So the question is since the symbols on the keyboard don't match the symbols you get when you type how can you figure out how to type somethings. Like if I want to type the @ symbol no amount of pressing Shift 2 is going to bring that up. So let's go back into System Settings here. 
Then go back to Keyboard and go back to Input Sources again by clicking Edit. Now if I select a keyboard here notice I get a representation of the keyboard. This is great because it helps you match up what you see on your physical keyboard with what this Input Source expects. So this is what I get if I just were to type any of the keys. However, I can hold the Shift Key down and this will change. This is what I get when I use the Shift Key and type any of those keys. You can see here the 2 key changes to an @ symbol. I can also hold the Option Key down and see what I get, and the Shift and Option together to see what I get. If I switch to another keyboard like this one then you can see things will change. If I hold the Shift Key down here you can see the 2 gives you a double-quote. So how do I get the @ symbol. Well, you have to search for it. You only have four variations. No modifier key held down; the Shift Key held down; the Option Key held down; and the Shift and Option Key held down. In this case I can spot the @ symbol by holding the Option Key down and I notice that Option 2 gives me the @ symbol. So if the keyboard is still set to Canadian PC I can hold Option and Press 2 and that's how I get the @ symbol. 
I can see here there are other symbols that take the place of the left and right brackets. So if I hold Shift down, Option down I can find the square brackets. It's Option and those keys that gets me them, and holding the Shift down plus Option gets me the Curly Brackets. It is the same for any other keyboard. If I choose Spanish here for instance, I can choose Latin American Spanish, Spanish, or Spanish Legacy. I even get a little representation down here before I select it. So this is what the Latin American keyboard will give me. You can see some of the keys are different. If I choose Spanish then there is some other changes and in Spanish Legacy some other changes. If I choose Swedish, right here, I can see those and for each version. Here's the Korean keyboard. You can see there are five variations of those. Not all of these will match up to a keyboard that Apple or other companies make. There may only be one out of the set or maybe even none of them. But this is  going to show you the representation of how your physical keyboard will work if it is set to use one of these languages if it is set to a different Input Source. 
So the next time you need to figure out how to type a basic character head to System Settings, Keyboard, Input Sources. Click the Edit button and then look for it here by holding down the different modifier keys. Remember if you need something beyond that just use Control Command and Space or use the fn or Globe Key and e and then you can search for Emoji but also all the unicode characters here. So for instance I can search for something like Question and get various different question marks here this way. Of course most of these are things that you can't just regularly type with the keyboard. They are special characters that you need to access this way. 
I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 5 Responses to “How To Find Missing Symbols On Your Mac Keyboard”

Sheldon

6 days ago

Thanks bunches

Osmo Kuusisto

5 days ago

Very good Gary, but what about an external keyboard (Apple Magic Keyboard). How can I apply these things to that keyboard? I can only get what you said on the MacBook's internal keyboard.
Thank you,
Osmo

Gary Rosenzweig

Osmo: Is it different than internal? If so, add it under All Input Sources.

Osmo

4 days ago

Thanks Gary! It's just one key that doesn't produce the symbol it's supposed to on the external keyboard:
Tilde/back accent on English language which is Degree/vertical separator on LatAm Spanish language.
It does what it's supposed to do on the internal keyboard, but not on the external keyboard.
I did a workaround with Text Replacement.
Keep up the great work,
Osmo

Roger

6 hours ago

Hi Gary, on my settings button at the top of the screen, this also gives me a keyboard viewer which gives a half screen view of my keyboard which allows the cmd/option/ keys to show up for me to choose whatever.
Great hints and tips which are really appreciated Many thanks