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I'm trying to enter unicode characters by using Alt+#### but I'm not being able to.

In Registry Editor, I added a new String value called EnableHexNumpad with value of 1 in HKCU\Control Panel\Input Method and rebooted, but nothing has changed. What's happening?

I'm using Window 8.1, tried on Word, Notepad, Chrome, Visual Studio, nothing...

Any clue? Thanks in advance!

edit:

reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Input Method"

output:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method
Show Status        REG_SZ    1
EnableHexNumpad    REG_SZ    1

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys

Edit: It was PEBKAC!
I was trying to type stuff like Alt+2075 (✅) without actually typing plus! Thanks to @JosefZ for clarifying this out for me.

Maximilian Burszley
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Rond
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    With this registry settings: what happens if you type e.g. **+03b1** while **holding** the **Alt** key? _Greek Small Letter Alpha_ **α** (note that leading `+` is important while leading zeroes are not. So **Alt** + **+3b1** is the same as **Alt** + **+03b1** – JosefZ May 01 '17 at 15:44
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    What the... I feel so dumb, I didn't know I needed to actually type **+**, I thought plus was meaning that I needed to hold alt and type only what comes after the plus symbol! Thanks a bunch! – Rond May 01 '17 at 16:40
  • @Rond I was today years old when I found I had to actually press the + and it didn't mean "as well". For the past 25 years of my software engineering career I've been copy and pasting anything which wasn't ASCII like a n00b ☹️ – Rab Mar 25 '21 at 13:24
  • In almost all other documentation I've ever seen, the "+" _does_ mean hold down a modifier key while pressing some other key(s) so this point needs to be made really clear. Note also that we're talking about _hexadecimal_ representation of Unicode code points here, e.g. `Alt +117` for ė (U+0117) whereas alt codes were historically decimal. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_code for more. – Denis Howe Dec 27 '22 at 23:28

1 Answers1

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To improve discoverability, I'm going to copy JosefZ's comment from more than a year ago into an answer:

With this registry settings: what happens if you type e.g. +03b1 while holding the Alt key? Greek Small Letter Alpha α (note that leading + is important while leading zeroes are not. So Alt + +3b1 is the same as Alt + +03b1

The registry setting in question is

HKCU\Control Panel\Input Method

which can be obtained from the command line by typing:

reg query "HKCU\Control Panel\Input Method"
FreeMan
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