Typing Emoji and Other Special Characters

It is easier than ever before to add special characters like emoji or symbols to anything you type on your Mac. But just using a simple keyboard shortcut, you can browse and search through different types of characters and add them to your text. Recently, Apple added the ability to set the skin color for many emojis.

Comments: 21 Responses to “Typing Emoji and Other Special Characters”

    Archie
    9 years ago

    i am going to try it today. Before I read this I failed at putting one in an e-mail. We will see if I have learned anything. Thanks.

    Christine Patch
    9 years ago

    Thanks for this. Followed your instruction but the Emoji did not appear on my page. I was using the MAC mail programme. Any suggestions?

    Thanks

      9 years ago

      Which version of OS X are you using? Is it Yosemite?

    Merrill Petrow
    9 years ago

    It doesn't work with Word 2008. I'm using Yosemite. Any ideas?

      9 years ago

      I'd imagine not, since Yosemite didn't exist in 2008. Can't expect 7 year old software to support features that didn't exist when it was released.

    Bill Locke
    9 years ago

    Gary, thanks for your emoji tips. Very useful. I always enjoy your useful videos.
    Related to this: Mac users lost the easy way of inserting French and Spanish characters with accents with the newest OS versions. We used to just depress longer the keyboard letters we needed and the options appeared. Depress a and the á option would appear for typing in Spanish, for example. Now one has to invoke the special keyboard and go from there. Any easy shortcuts that emulate the old way?

      9 years ago

      Bill, that method is actually the "new" method and it works fine in Yosemite. Is it not working for you? Not sure what could be wrong. There are ways to disable it, but they are advanced and wouldn't happen by accident.

    Kent Heaps
    9 years ago

    Pressing control, command and space bar does not seem to bring up any emoji's on my mac using the Lion os10 software. Am I doing something wrong?

      9 years ago

      Lion is much too old. I can't remember the exact version of OS X this was introduced, but it was newer than Lion. Mavericks, perhaps.

    Eric
    9 years ago

    Nice! Hitting "control command space" inside Final Cut Pro X 10.2.1 while editing 3D text allows 3D manipulation of the installed symbols! Awesome! Thanks Gary.

    Carol
    9 years ago

    Not working in gmail on MacBook Pro Yosemite 10.10.4 in Chrome; is there an extension? I will try another browser.

      9 years ago

      Chrome may not have this enabled. Try Safari.

    Kathy
    9 years ago

    This doesn't work in Gmail 😞

      Kathy
      9 years ago

      That's Gmail using Safari....

        9 years ago

        For me, it works in Gmail (web-based) for the Subject line, but not the body.

          Kathy
          9 years ago

          Thanks Gary, will have to put them all there then!

    Alison
    9 years ago

    Thanks for all your help!
    I have a new MacBook Air running Yosemite, but in Mail and TextEdit nothing happens with Control-Command-Space. Tried it several ways. I CAN get emoji by requesting it in Mail Help. It says to use the character viewer. My software is supposedly up to date... Baffled! But since I can get the viewer I can use that.

      9 years ago

      Not sure why this doesn't work for some people. Perhaps there is some software out there that is blocking or using that combination of keys.

        Alison
        9 years ago

        I FOUND it under Edit! But the keyboard command still doesn't work. I think it says "shift + Command + T" ... I tried that and variations -- nothing worked. Must be a Yosemite glitch? but if it's in the overhead menu that's perfect. I now have emoji power!

    Mona
    9 years ago

    Hi Gary! Thanks for all the many many hints and tips. I love using emojis, and this surely helps....but one at a time is what I have. If I wnat another, I have to go through the C-C-S again. Is there a way to keep the emoji board up?
    Thanks!!

      9 years ago

      Just click on the little bottom at the very top right, next to the search field.

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