Special Characters — Copy & Paste

A special character is any character that isn't a letter or a number. The everyday set is the 32 punctuation marks and symbols printed on a standard US keyboard, from ! to ~. Security guides such as OWASP's use that set for passwords, and count the space as a 33rd. Beyond the keyboard, the term also covers accented letters like é and ñ, and symbols like © and €, which most keyboards can't type directly.

When a sign-up form asks for "at least one special character", it almost always means the keyboard set, so a symbol such as ! or # is the safe pick. Some systems still reject a few of them, and many reject accented letters or emoji. If a password is refused, check that site's rules.

On Windows, press the Windows key and the period key together to open the emoji panel, which also has symbols. Or hold Alt and type a code on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on: Alt+0169 gives ©, Alt+0176 gives °, and Alt+0233 gives é. The number row above the letters won't work — it has to be the keypad.

On a Mac, press and hold a letter key to open the accent menu: hold e, then pick é. For everything else, press Fn/Globe+E, or choose Edit > Emoji & Symbols, to open the Character Viewer and search by name. Most phone keyboards also show accented versions when you hold a letter. On any device, copying from the grids above works anywhere you can paste text.

Spanish uses nine characters an English keyboard lacks: the accented vowels á, é, í, ó and ú, plus ñ, ü, and the opening marks ¿ and ¡. On Windows their Alt codes are 0225, 0233, 0237, 0243, 0250, 0241, 0252, 0191 and 0161. Capitals have codes of their own — Ñ is Alt+0209 and É is Alt+0201.

The converter on this page does something different from the grids: it swaps every letter you type for a styled Unicode letter, like 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝 or 𝒸𝓊𝓇𝓈𝒾𝓋ℯ. Those are special characters too — each styled letter is its own Unicode code point — which is why they paste into bios and names that have no font menu.