On 2/21/2010 1:13 AM, Puckdropper wrote:
"J. wrote in
:


The code in the lower _left_ is the Unicode value. If there is a code
for the character which may be entered using the ALT key it will be on
the lower _right_. All characters don't have such a code. And if
you're using Word then you can use the Unicode value by entering the
hex then ALT-X (be nice if MS carried this through to all their
applications but . . .).


Apparently I wasn't selecting the right characters. With the Times New
Roman font, the characters after the Tilde (starting with the no break
space) start showing codes on the lower right.

Why not show the codes for each character, so Character Map actually
reflects the functionality that's there? Probably some historical
reason...

Puckdropper

I think they're seeing the use of the ASCII codes as "legacy". They
only seem to be showing codes for symbols that don't have a marked key.

There's a way to turn on using the Alt key to get the hexadecimal
Unicode symbols but it doesn't work in Windows Mail. It does work
though in Thunderbird: ALT-+-B0 gives ° (note-you gotta have the "+" in
there), as does ALT-0176, but ALT-176 gives –‘. Weird--Thunderbird works
exactly like the Microsoft docs say that an application is supposed to
act, but Windows Mail doesn't.

You might want to bring up notepad or Word or something and give it a
try--if your machine is not recognizing the ALT+hex Unicode
combinations, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_code tells how to turn
it on.