Ever wonder how to do this? I can envision rare occasions when you would want to, so I googled and found the answer. In addition to the pi sign, there are a host of other fun symbols to print like ☺♥ ↕. Here's how to type pi, but it comes out looking kind of wonky on the forum's text editor, and it looks like this "π". This only works on a desktop. For a laptop without a number pad you have to do something different. Directions for laptops or Macs can be found here (https://www.wikihow.com/Type-the-Pi-Symbol). At a desktop do this:
1. Press NumLk on your PC's keyboard.
2. Press and hold Alt.
3. Type 227 with the number pad.
4. Release Alt.
...and you get π. But that's only in this forum. If you try typing it into a different file like a text file or a word processor, it comes out looking like the traditional pi sign.
Starting with 1, Pi is far down on the list of useful symbols at NUM LOCK ALTERNATE 227. You would think it would come sooner, but guess what number 1 is? It's a rudimentary happy face ☺. Go figure.
♫ Alt-14
(https://i.imgur.com/nrBVZKB.jpg)
Alt II should be banned from all keyboards ;-)
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on September 30, 2018, 11:20:27 AM
♫ Alt-14
(https://i.imgur.com/nrBVZKB.jpg)
I can't get your method to work with out pressing num lock 1st. If I don't, I go back to the most recent topic.
Ã'
I don't get it by typing ALT+227.
Quote from: Sal1981 on September 30, 2018, 03:33:14 PM
Ã'
I don't get it by typing ALT+227.
Make sure you use the number pad.
I'm sure there is a actual keyboard application for this
Quote from: SGOS on September 30, 2018, 03:37:23 PM
Make sure you use the number pad.
I am. Must be my language settings.
Cool! But it doesn't seem to work on my Mac.
Quote from: Cavebear on October 01, 2018, 09:28:33 AM
Cool! But it doesn't seem to work on my Mac.
Directions for laptops or Macs can be found here.
Edit: ...can be found in the first post.
Quote from: SGOS on October 01, 2018, 09:48:33 AM
Directions for laptops or Macs can be found here.
No "here" there... LOL!
Quote from: Cavebear on October 01, 2018, 09:55:19 AM
No "here" there... LOL!
Yeah, some of those sites aren't all that helpful. I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work on some PCs either.
Quote from: SGOS on September 30, 2018, 12:59:48 PM
I can't get your method to work with out pressing num lock 1st. If I don't, I go back to the most recent topic.
Different computers or keyboards. I have dedicated arrow keys, so Num Lock is always on.
Quote from: SGOS on October 01, 2018, 10:52:43 AM
Yeah, some of those sites aren't all that helpful. I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work on some PCs either.
He meant there was no link.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 01, 2018, 12:08:16 PM
He meant there was no link.
2 Points for Gawdzilla! But I could look it up. In fact I will. I didn't know that was where the musical note symbols came from and I want to use them on my blogs.
https://marksmews.blogspot.com/ (https://marksmews.blogspot.com/)
http://cavebearslair.blogspot.com/ (http://cavebearslair.blogspot.com/)
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 01, 2018, 12:08:16 PM
He meant there was no link.
I wondered, so I tried it again, and it worked for me. Different computers, I suppose.
Quote from: SGOS on October 01, 2018, 01:39:52 PM
I wondered, so I tried it again, and it worked for me. Different computers, I suppose.
Wait, you are missing the point. There was no link in your post... Go back and look. LOL!
Quote from: Cavebear on October 01, 2018, 01:45:39 PM
Wait, you are missing the point. There was no link in your post... Go back and look. LOL!
Go back to the first post, and click on "here" (it's the "here" with the blue underline). A latter post of mine was a cut and paste of the link, and it didn't pick up the hyperlink.
Quote from: SGOS on October 01, 2018, 01:54:25 PM
Go back to the first post, and click on "here" (it's the "here" with the blue underline). A latter post of mine was a cut and paste of the link, and it didn't pick up the hyperlink.
Wow that was the least visual link I ever saw. But of course I only saw the later post without it.
I do appreciate the link.
Your Welcome.
The basic alt-codes under Windows are a very handy thing â€" you may have noticed that I tend to enter a proper em-dash (alt-0151) rather than two hyphens, and prefer the spelling coöperate over cooperate (alt-0246).
There is a difference between the extended alt-codes and the basic ones; I tend to use the extended ones where alt-0227 is ã (alt-227 is usually Ï€ â€" in some systems, it's Ã').
WindowsKey-R will bring up a command prompt; type in charmap and you can see all the available characters.
Quote from: trdsf on October 01, 2018, 03:40:16 PM
The basic alt-codes under Windows are a very handy thing â€" you may have noticed that I tend to enter a proper em-dash (alt-0151) rather than two hyphens, and prefer the spelling coöperate over cooperate (alt-0246).
There is a difference between the extended alt-codes and the basic ones; I tend to use the extended ones where alt-0227 is ã (alt-227 is usually Ï€ â€" in some systems, it's Ã').
WindowsKey-R will bring up a command prompt; type in charmap and you can see all the available characters.
There ARE times I regret not using a PC. Not many, but some.
https://www.alt-codes.net/
Quote from: Cavebear on October 01, 2018, 04:04:22 PM
Printed, tnx...
The test box is handy, you can see what the symbol looks like on your box.
If you're on a Windoze machine search for "character map". Saves typing.
I have a text file I use for frequently needed symbols.
[spoiler]QHRR-CS5AEV-F5HZN7
&c., &c., &c.
* * * * *
®
§ †‡ ± â€" ¦ | | ° Î" •¶ c √ §
¼ ½ ¾
Ö Ü
Ä€ Ä Ä' Ä" Ī Ä« ÅŒ ŠŪ Å« Å
KÅkÅ«tai
Ã¥ ä à â á ã æ ç Ä Ã¨ é ê ë à ì î ï ñ ô ö ó Å¡ ù ú û ü Å" ¿
Ã,, É Ê
£ ¥ ¢ ¡ ψ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Letters_with_macron
Ä€ Ä
Çž ÇŸ
Ç Ç¡
Ǣ ǣ
Ḇ ḇ
CÌ,, cÌ,,
Ḏ á¸
Ä' Ä"
á¸" ḕ
Ḗ ḗ
Ḡḡ
H̱ ẖ
Ī ī
Ḵ ḵ
Ḻ ḻ
Ḹ ḹ
MÌ,, mÌ,,
Ṉ ṉ
NÌ,, nÌ,,
ÅŒ Å
á¹' á¹"
á¹ á¹'
Ȫ ȫ
Ǭ Ç
Ȭ È
Ȱ ȱ
RÌ,, rÌ,,
Ṟ ṟ
Ṝ á¹
Ṯ ṯ
Ū ū
Ç• Ç–
Ṻ ṻ
Ȳ ȳ
áº" ẕ
Documentation icon Template documentation
chargé d'affaires
Constitução
ibiblio.org/pha/policy/German-documents-preceding-WWII.pdf
45°52' 24.98" N 9° 15' 14.53" E
36° 56' 59.87" N 127 43° '55.35" E
dadushezhen
[/spoiler]
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 01, 2018, 04:18:21 PM
If you're on a Windoze machine search for "character map". Saves typing.
I have a text file I use for frequently needed symbols.
[spoiler]QHRR-CS5AEV-F5HZN7
&c., &c., &c.
* * * * *
®
§ †‡ ± â€" ¦ | | ° Î" •¶ c √ §
¼ ½ ¾
Ö Ü
Ä€ Ä Ä' Ä" Ī Ä« ÅŒ ŠŪ Å« Å
KÅkÅ«tai
Ã¥ ä à â á ã æ ç Ä Ã¨ é ê ë à ì î ï ñ ô ö ó Å¡ ù ú û ü Å" ¿
Ã,, É Ê
£ ¥ ¢ ¡ ψ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Letters_with_macron
Ä€ Ä
Çž ÇŸ
Ç Ç¡
Ǣ ǣ
Ḇ ḇ
CÌ,, cÌ,,
Ḏ á¸
Ä' Ä"
á¸" ḕ
Ḗ ḗ
Ḡḡ
H̱ ẖ
Ī ī
Ḵ ḵ
Ḻ ḻ
Ḹ ḹ
MÌ,, mÌ,,
Ṉ ṉ
NÌ,, nÌ,,
ÅŒ Å
á¹' á¹"
á¹ á¹'
Ȫ ȫ
Ǭ Ç
Ȭ È
Ȱ ȱ
RÌ,, rÌ,,
Ṟ ṟ
Ṝ á¹
Ṯ ṯ
Ū ū
Ç• Ç–
Ṻ ṻ
Ȳ ȳ
áº" ẕ
Documentation icon Template documentation
chargé d'affaires
Constitução
ibiblio.org/pha/policy/German-documents-preceding-WWII.pdf
45°52' 24.98" N 9° 15' 14.53" E
36° 56' 59.87" N 127 43° '55.35" E
dadushezhen
[/spoiler]
Mac
Mac & Cheese, Chili Mac ... Mac forever.
I just have most of the alphabetic accented character codes memorized out of use. I still have to look up some of them, though. And of course, many extended Latin characters aren't simply accessible from the keyboard, alas. Ä™ should be alt-0281 and Å, should be alt-0322, but nothing comes up that way.
Alt-1000 through Alt-1010 generates ΦΘΩδ∞φε∩≡±≥, which are clearly mathematic symbols. ╥╙╘â•' are Alt-1234 through 1237, and these characters aren't adjacent in the Unicode table.
I think I have some research to do... it's clearly not pulling these codes from the Unicode table, nor do they match up with the DOS or Windows tables. Weird.
Quote from: trdsf on October 02, 2018, 01:24:08 PM
I just have most of the alphabetic accented character codes memorized out of use. I still have to look up some of them, though. And of course, many extended Latin characters aren't simply accessible from the keyboard, alas. Ä™ should be alt-0281 and Å, should be alt-0322, but nothing comes up that way.
Alt-1000 through Alt-1010 generates ΦΘΩδ∞φε∩≡±≥, which are clearly mathematic symbols. ╥╙╘â•' are Alt-1234 through 1237, and these characters aren't adjacent in the Unicode table.
I think I have some research to do... it's clearly not pulling these codes from the Unicode table, nor do they match up with the DOS or Windows tables. Weird.
In general, Windows/Office has more than one text format mode. Unicode being just one. If you have a .txt already saved in Notepad as Unicode, it will stay in Unicode. Notepad is monolithic like that (per document). Wordpad is a odd relic, not quite Word .. I pretty much only use Notepad or Word now. Another option to mess up your odds of success is saving a document in PDF mode.
Ï€
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on September 30, 2018, 11:20:27 AM
♫ Alt-14
(https://i.imgur.com/nrBVZKB.jpg)
I have to wonder why they bothered making this feature. What are we supposed to do? Memorize these random combinations of numbers? It'd be easier to Google it, then copy/paste.
Back in the day, a man's penis size was measured by how many Megabytes his PC hard drive had, and how many function key combos he could master.
I remember the ones I use routinely. Just another code. ♫
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 04, 2018, 12:36:36 AM
I remember the ones I use routinely. Just another code. ♫
If I used any routinely, I would remember them too.
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on October 03, 2018, 01:36:29 PM
Ï€
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 03, 2018, 06:54:41 PM
Dot matrix printer friendly.
This has troubled me throughout the thread. I see some people that can print out the one that looks like a Chinese character, but all I get is something that looks like and "n". In grade school we were taught to draw three lines that looked kind of like a table. But math books and all printed articles use the classic Chinese like character. One of things about computers is that they create text that approaches the printed page quality in a book, but without all the erasure marks and extra scribbling, so I expect to make a real pie sign with my computer, not just some make do dingus that looks like some top IBM executive said, "Hey! We forgot to make the character for pi, so me and the boys decided we are going to just use "n" and tell everyone it's pi."
Pi, my ass!
If you knew Greek, and a better font, this wouldn't be an issue ;-)
Μῆνιν á¼,,ειδε, θεά, Πηληιάδεω ἈχιλλῆοÏ, ... not a good "pi"
Μῆνιν á¼,,ειδε, θεά, Πηληιάδεω ἈχιλλῆοÏ, ... a better "pi"
Quote from: SGOS on October 04, 2018, 06:31:55 AM
This has troubled me throughout the thread. I see some people that can print out the one that looks like a Chinese character, but all I get is something that looks like and "n". In grade school we were taught to draw three lines that looked kind of like a table. But math books and all printed articles use the classic Chinese like character. One of things about computers is that they create text that approaches the printed page quality in a book, but without all the erasure marks and extra scribbling, so I expect to make a real pie sign with my computer, not just some make do dingus that looks like some top IBM executive said, "Hey! We forgot to make the character for pi, so me and the boys decided we are going to just use "n" and tell everyone it's pi."
Pi, my ass!
I didn't understand your point about "n" before. Sorry. But that's why I just type "Pi".
Quote from: Cavebear on October 04, 2018, 07:19:25 AM
I didn't understand your point about "n" before. Sorry. But that's why I just type "Pi".
And even more practical solution ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on October 04, 2018, 07:20:31 AM
And even more practical solution ;-)
Better than the biblical 3.0...
Quote from: SGOS on October 04, 2018, 06:31:55 AM
This has troubled me throughout the thread. I see some people that can print out the one that looks like a Chinese character, but all I get is something that looks like and "n". In grade school we were taught to draw three lines that looked kind of like a table. But math books and all printed articles use the classic Chinese like character. One of things about computers is that they create text that approaches the printed page quality in a book, but without all the erasure marks and extra scribbling, so I expect to make a real pie sign with my computer, not just some make do dingus that looks like some top IBM executive said, "Hey! We forgot to make the character for pi, so me and the boys decided we are going to just use "n" and tell everyone it's pi."
Pi, my ass!
Yeah, the sans serif pi just looks like an angular lower case 'n': πnπnπnπn
That's why I try to remember to also make it a serifed font like Times when I need to use it, for improved clarity:
Ï€
Quote from: Cavebear on October 04, 2018, 07:19:25 AM
I didn't understand your point about "n" before. Sorry. But that's why I just type "Pi".
They have two symbols available for pi. They aren't "n", but they look like variations of a lower case "n". I don't see why they don't use the universal symbol. If they can make an ace of spades [â™ ], they should be able to make a regular pi symbol.
Quote from: trdsf on October 04, 2018, 08:58:07 AM
Yeah, the sans serif pi just looks like an angular lower case 'n': πnπnπnπn
That's why I try to remember to also make it a serifed font like Times when I need to use it, for improved clarity: π
I'm still not getting it.
Oh wait:
πThere! I typed π using [Num Lock-alternate- 227] and then enclosed it in Times New Roman:
Ï€ It doesn't show up as the regular pi symbol in the text editor, but it shows up in the "preview mode".
How did you figure that out?
Quote from: SGOS on October 04, 2018, 09:50:15 AM
I'm still not getting it.
Oh wait:
Ï€
There! I typed π using [Num Lock-alternate- 227] and then enclosed it in Times New Roman: π It doesn't show up as the regular pi symbol in the text editor, but it shows up in the "preview mode".
How did you figure that out?
I do a certain amount of amateur typesetting. I was responsible for the grammatical and typographical editing of the APA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_press_association) I co-founded in the early '90s, and I experiment with font design, and of course the layout of my own writing to get a feel for how it will look if and when published.
Ï€ should exist in all TrueType/OpenType faces, so it should be available in all ten faces available in this forum software, thusly:
Courier: πArial: πArial Black: πImpact: πVerdana: πTimes New Roman: πGeorgia: πAndale Mono: πTrebuchet MS: πComic Sans MS: πVerdana, which is the default face here, is really the outlier as it alone lacks the little overhangs of the top bar that helps visually differentiate pi from lower case n. Arial is dull, but at least it has those.
Quote from: trdsf on October 04, 2018, 10:45:29 AM
I do a certain amount of amateur typesetting. I was responsible for the grammatical and typographical editing of the [urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_press_association]APA[/url] I co-founded in the early '90s, and I experiment with font design, and of course the layout of my own writing to get a feel for how it will look if and when published. π should exist in all TrueType/OpenType faces, so it should be available in all ten faces available in this forum software, thusly:
Courier: π
Arial: π
Arial Black: π
Impact: π
Verdana: π
Times New Roman: π
Georgia: π
Andale Mono: π
Trebuchet MS: π
Comic Sans MS: π
Verdana, which is the default face here, is really the outlier as it alone lacks the little overhangs of the top bar that helps visually differentiate pi from lower case n. Arial is dull, but at least it has those.
Figures; I like Arial... But (and forgive me) why not just "pi"?
Quote from: Cavebear on October 04, 2018, 02:25:40 PM
Figures; I like Arial... But (and forgive me) why not just "pi"?
Arial is my favorite too. It's clean. Times looks good, as I'm used to it in books and newspapers, although it has a lot of foo fah dangling off the letters, which while attractive, seems unnecessary. Another personal favorite is comic sans. It's clear, but different and makes me happy.
I don't know why not just "pi". I wondered the same thing in 7th grade.
Using proper Greek letters shows "education" and "class".
"By being so long in the lowest form [at Harrow] I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. . . . I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence - which is a noble thing. Naturally I am biased in favor of boys learning English; I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat." - Winston Churchill
Quote from: trdsf on October 04, 2018, 10:45:29 AM
I do a certain amount of amateur typesetting. I was responsible for the grammatical and typographical editing of the APA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_press_association) I co-founded in the early '90s, and I experiment with font design, and of course the layout of my own writing to get a feel for how it will look if and when published. π should exist in all TrueType/OpenType faces, so it should be available in all ten faces available in this forum software, thusly:
Well, that explains why you seem to know about a lot about it.
Quote from: SGOS on October 05, 2018, 08:55:31 AM
Well, that explains why you seem to know about a lot about it.
Also, I am a thoroughgoing nerd. :D
Quote from: trdsf on October 05, 2018, 11:24:32 AM
Also, I am a thoroughgoing nerd. :D
Nerdom is not necessarily a problem. It means specialized knowledge. Glory in it.