Using Alt-Character Test

[warmstrong1955]

Now to find π on the iPad.....

[Steggy]

How about Ø θ — – µ π – § ¿ ! © ® ™ ° ± ¶ † ¹ ² ³ ¼ ½ ¾ × ÷ • → € ♫ ♮ ♭ ♯?

Most anything listed as an HTML entity ought to work.

What Alt-code did you use to get the image of pi? I can't seem to find that in my list of the codes. TIA.

Hold down the Alt key and while doing so, type the numerals 2 2 7 in succession on the numeric keypad. Release Alt and a π symbol will appear. For the typographically meticulous types, the glyph is not exactly correct, but close enough for government work.

Incidentally, this works for a number of other symbols: ☺ ☻ ♥

Those came from Alt-1. Alt-2 and Alt-3, respectively.

[mklotz]

I normally compose posts in my editor (DocPad) and, while some of the Alt codes work there, the pi symbol doesn't; it produces the lower case 'p'. However, if I edit the post using the forum software, it works as advertised and produces the pi letter.

This is true for a few of the other symbols mentioned on the page that Bill mentioned. I can only conclude that my editor only makes available the codes embedded in the Windows font.

Regardless, thanks for your help.

[warmstrong1955]

I think that's it Marv.....works on anything Windows. I tried it in Outlook, Word, & Excel....got a π in all.

I'm not familiar with DocPad.

Bill

[ctwo]

I was going to suggest it may be a font limitation, but then I remember something about the original ASCII standard character set is only 7 bits (mostly covered by your keyboard). I've entered in all of the extended 8-bit ASCII codes into Excel and used the CHAR (and alternatively CODE) function to see what characters are produced. They all do not work there either. Furthermore, if I copy π from here and paste it into Excel (or manually key in the ASCII code), I get π. But decoding that gives me ASCII 63, which is a ?

[mklotz]

Ø θ — – µ π – § ¿ ! © ® ™ ° ± ¶ † ¹ ² ³ ¼ ½ ¾ × ÷ • → € ♫ ♮ ♭ ♯?

Copying and pasting seems to work in DocPad as well.

[warmstrong1955]

It works on my old XP laptop, with excel 2003. No number pad, but there's a num lock button. And I had to hold down the Fn and alt keys....and the numbers 1 thru 6 are hi-lited in blue below some letters on the upper righ, instead of across the top.
Confusing....but it works.

Bill