Sometimes when working in a spreadsheet program like Google Sheets, you may want to insert special characters or symbols.
Using these special characters can add variety to your spreadsheet and make things stand out.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to insert special characters in Google Sheets.
Table of Contents
Inserting Special Characters from Google Docs
The easiest way to add special characters to a Google Spreadsheet is to first create them in a Google Doc and then copy them over.
Here is how this is done:
1. Open up a Google Doc and in the top menu select Insert>Special characters
2. From here you will see a box pop up with a variety of special characters you can insert in your spreadsheet. To change the type of symbol select the drop-down box under Symbol and from here you have a variety of symbol types to choose from such as Symbol, Emoji, Punctuation, and more. Select the type of symbol that you want to use
3. Next select the specific special character that you want to insert into your spreadsheet
4. You will now see the symbol in your Google Doc. Highlight it and right-click and copy it (or press CTRL + C on your keyboard to copy)
5. Open your Google Sheet and select the cell where you want to paste the special character. Right-click and select Paste (or press CTRL + V on your keyboard to paste)
6. You should now see your chosen special character inside your spreadsheet. If you want to add more characters repeat the process
Inserting Symbols Using Alt Key Codes
Another way you can insert special characters into Google Sheets is by using Alt character codes
To do this method, all you need to do is double click inside a cell, press the ALT key, and then on the numeric keypad press numbers to insert the corresponding character.
Here are some examples of characters you can add to your sheet with Alt key codes:
Here is a complete list of Alt codes.
Closing Thoughts
There is not a direct way to insert special characters in Google Sheets, but by using the two methods above you should be able to get almost any character that you need into your spreadsheet.
Whether you are trying to get emojis, arrows, hearts, delta symbols, or any other character into your sheet, this method should work. Hopefully, this will get you the character you need.
If not you can try drawing your own character with method one, but it might not look as good as a pre-designed character.
More Google Sheets Tutorials:
How to Enter Subscript and Superscript
How to Remove Trailing and Leading Spaces
How to Add a Checkmark Symbol