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Character Map is a horrible, horrible utility. What is a good free alternative?

Ideally, I hope to find a program that comes close to Mac OS X's Character Palette in terms of features & functionality. Specifically: I need a character name search that works, the ability to look at all codepoints (not just what is in one particular typeface) and a listing of all Unicode planes.

CyberSkull
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    I've never found Character Map to be horrible. I've actually appreciated the fact that you could search for a character by Unicode name... – bwDraco Aug 11 '12 at 00:19

2 Answers2

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BabelMap is a free character map application for Windows that allows you to browse through the entire Unicode character repertoire, or search for a particular character by name or by code point.

It is freeware and comes as a portable executable - beat that!

http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html

Iain S
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  • The link seems to be down at the moment. Here's an alternative link to the portable version http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/babelmap-portable – blade Jun 03 '16 at 11:58
  • WinCompose by Sam Hocevar (free and open-source) can also be used to enter special characters. For example, by default, to enter the symbol £ one can type AltGr then - (dash) then L. https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose – Youssef Abidi Aug 03 '23 at 09:04
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Soft-Gems' Unicode Font Viewer (Download Page) and ergonis's "PopChar" come pretty close to what you are looking for. I personally prefer the later, particularly due to the nicer UI. It's a shareware so try it out before jumping the gun (wallet).

IUnknown
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    PopChar looks good, but €30 ($36) is too much at this time. It will be the middle of next week before I can give either of these a shot. – CyberSkull Aug 11 '12 at 22:30
  • I just tried Unicode Font Viewer, it's certainly better about displaying a plain than character map, but the UI is too unfriendly. – CyberSkull Aug 13 '12 at 16:49