# Solved: how to generate special characters on keyboard



## needsleep (Sep 27, 2005)

Hi,

I have an excel spreadsheet, and I'd like to insert a wingding character - a check mark.
I'd like to set up a macro to do this. But if I copy the checkmark to the clipboard and create the macro to paste the clipboard, this won't work if there is something else in the clipboard. What I need is a way to tell the macro what key combination I'm typing in, is what I want in the cell. The check mark character is way at the bottom of the character map sequence for wingdings. I've gone through all my keys, and there's many more characters between the end of what my keys will create, and that check mark. 

Is there a way to generate keys using ALT or something? I tried ALT-1-2-3, but that didn't give me anything. Is the ALT sequence or whatever it is, mapped to ascii? Is that the character code I see at the bottom of the character map window? Is there any correlation of that code to what I'm going to type into my cell to get my checkmark?

Thanks.


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## Rollin_Again (Sep 4, 2003)

You can select your cell and use the code below. Just assign a keyboard shortcut to fire your code or integrate into your existing code. Hope this helps.


```
ActiveCell.Font.Name = "Wingdings"
ActiveCell.Value = Chr(252)
```
Regards,

Rollin


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## The Villan (Feb 20, 2006)

Neesleep
The ALT key does work. However, you have to use the numeric keypad, not the numbers above qwerty part of the keyboard

So you hold the Alt key down and type 123 and then release the alt key, then press Enter to accept it into the cell.

http://www.lookuptables.com/

Hope that helps

Yes the ALT key is mapped to ascii


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## The Villan (Feb 20, 2006)

Oh forgot to mention that if you click on Insert, then Symbol... you will also get the various symbols.

I have just done a Tools Macro, record macro used the Alt technique and the macro worked fine.. This is how the macro was recorded

ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "{"


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## ChuckE (Aug 30, 2004)

While the Alt+0252 would be the sequence you'd want for the "checkmark" (the lead 0 is important) it does not set your font family to Wingdings. That is the real problem with wanting a simple Alt-key sequence.

Using a Macro is a better solution, if only to get past that problem.

Oh, by the way, there is also a "checked box" (in Wingdings) at key sequence Alt+0254. Just thought you might like that as well.


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## needsleep (Sep 27, 2005)

That was fantastic. Thanks to each of you for your insights.


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## The Villan (Feb 20, 2006)

You have now been wingdinged - needsleep


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