How do you get the little copyright (c) in a document?

I ran out of questions to answer today, so I pulled out an email that Chris from LubyVision sent me some time back. He was asking how to add a copyright symbol to a document, a simple question, but like most things, pretty infuriating if you don’t have the answer.

A number of packages had this feature built into them, however most don’t and there’s a simple standard way that can be used that works in all cases (even if you’re simply using a text editor). Here’s what you do. There’s also a cheat you can use, which I’ll show you at the bottom.

Open your Start Menu. Go to All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and you’ll find a utility called Character Map:

Once you open this, you’ll be presented with a display of different characters you can use:

Simply select the character you want, click Copy and you can just paste it into the document you’re working on.

It’s quite useful to have access to characters that aren’t on your keyboard. And the copyright character can be quite important if you’re selling something unique, like, say vegan shoes. There are a whole host of characters available on the Character Map, so don’t be afraid to have a play.

Now for the cheat. If you have a standard keyboard, press the ALT key down, and keeping it pressed type 169 on the numeric keypad. As soon as you release the ALT key, you should be presented with a copyright symbol. Nifty huh?