A much, much easier (GRIN) way, is to use MS Word's "Auto Correct" feature ! All you need to do is to decide on an easy to remember short cut of say 2 letters that do not make a known word or abbreviation, such as zx, and using the auto correct feature say that when every you type zx word must replace it (automatically, as you type) with the control character equivalent. Joy ----- Original Message ----- From: Johann Hanekom To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2011 10:06 AM Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] symbols in SA genealogies (Sonia van Heerden) Hi Sonia On a laptop you will find a number of keys with numbers on them, such as on U, I, O, P, etc To type Alt-number combinations, you need to depress and hold the blue Fn key (bottom left of your keyboard), together with the Alt key, and then type the number using the numbered keys shown on the various letter keys. Much easier to put the symbols in a text file, though, from which you can easily copy and paste when needed... Johann Message: 1 Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:34:59 -0400 From: Sonia van Heerden <soniavh11@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] symbols in SA genealogies To: <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <BLU160-W21BA7C46900D21F3EC38B5AB280@phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hi Keith Thanks for the advice. I will try translating a short article from Dutch as well as Afrikaans to see how it will turn out. Some of the translations were weird. I had one article with a woman names Catherina, and the Afrikaans translation changed her name to Margarita in every case. In another article there was the word Nederlands, and the translation programme changed the word to Canada, perhaps because it sees I am in Canada. Unfortunately with my laptop, because I do not have a numeric keypad, the Alt numbers do not work, with the numberic lock on or off, but I did find the character map and have used that to add the symbols in my text. Thanks again. Sonia Message: 5 Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:14:44 -0400 From: "Keith Meintjes" <umfundi@usa.net> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] symbols in SA genealogies To: <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <322PHoXNS2816S03.1313450084@web03.cms.usa.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sonia, When using Google translate, try Dutch => English as well as Afrikaans => English. For symbols, it is somewhat a matter of trial and error. In Word, try Insert ... Symbol and see if the symbol you want is in the table that is displayed. Otherwise, do a Google search on ASCII Code for some sort of explanation. To get an ASCII (or extended ASCII) symbol, hold down the ALT key and then type the 3 or 4 digit code on the numeric key pad. Release the ALT key, and voila! Baptised (wavy equal): 247 Died (dagger): 0134 Divorced (divide): 0247 Euro: 0128 British pound: 163 You can also find a vast number of Unicode symbols. To enter a Unicode symbol, type the 4-digit number. Then, highlight (select) the number, and type ALT+X. For instance, 2248 is the baptised symbol. There is also a way to type HTML characters, but we won't go there! Keith ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Joy, what a clever person you are! Thank you for this tip, I will share it with our geriatric computer club, who are always battling with UK pound signs etc! Cheers Fay -----Original Message----- From: south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of joy Sent: 20 August 2011 08:18 AM To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] symbols in SA genealogies (Sonia van Heerden) A much, much easier (GRIN) way, is to use MS Word's "Auto Correct" feature ! All you need to do is to decide on an easy to remember short cut of say 2 letters that do not make a known word or abbreviation, such as zx, and using the auto correct feature say that when every you type zx word must replace it (automatically, as you type) with the control character equivalent. Joy ----- Original Message ----- From: Johann Hanekom To: south-africa@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2011 10:06 AM Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] symbols in SA genealogies (Sonia van Heerden) Hi Sonia On a laptop you will find a number of keys with numbers on them, such as on U, I, O, P, etc To type Alt-number combinations, you need to depress and hold the blue Fn key (bottom left of your keyboard), together with the Alt key, and then type the number using the numbered keys shown on the various letter keys. Much easier to put the symbols in a text file, though, from which you can easily copy and paste when needed... Johann Message: 1 Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:34:59 -0400 From: Sonia van Heerden <soniavh11@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] symbols in SA genealogies To: <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <BLU160-W21BA7C46900D21F3EC38B5AB280@phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hi Keith Thanks for the advice. I will try translating a short article from Dutch as well as Afrikaans to see how it will turn out. Some of the translations were weird. I had one article with a woman names Catherina, and the Afrikaans translation changed her name to Margarita in every case. In another article there was the word Nederlands, and the translation programme changed the word to Canada, perhaps because it sees I am in Canada. Unfortunately with my laptop, because I do not have a numeric keypad, the Alt numbers do not work, with the numberic lock on or off, but I did find the character map and have used that to add the symbols in my text. Thanks again. Sonia Message: 5 Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:14:44 -0400 From: "Keith Meintjes" <umfundi@usa.net> Subject: Re: [SOUTH-AFRICA] symbols in SA genealogies To: <south-africa@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <322PHoXNS2816S03.1313450084@web03.cms.usa.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sonia, When using Google translate, try Dutch => English as well as Afrikaans => English. For symbols, it is somewhat a matter of trial and error. In Word, try Insert ... Symbol and see if the symbol you want is in the table that is displayed. Otherwise, do a Google search on ASCII Code for some sort of explanation. To get an ASCII (or extended ASCII) symbol, hold down the ALT key and then type the 3 or 4 digit code on the numeric key pad. Release the ALT key, and voila! Baptised (wavy equal): 247 Died (dagger): 0134 Divorced (divide): 0247 Euro: 0128 British pound: 163 You can also find a vast number of Unicode symbols. To enter a Unicode symbol, type the 4-digit number. Then, highlight (select) the number, and type ALT+X. For instance, 2248 is the baptised symbol. There is also a way to type HTML characters, but we won't go there! Keith ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

My apologies if this has been mentioned previously: Most Windows operating systems are pre-installed with a utility called 'Character Map' which can be found under 'Accessories' > 'System Tools'. I have found this to be very useful over the years.. Best wishes, Ron www.e-family.co.za