Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Creating Compound Characters.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 15, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021
Felipe asked if there is a way to place the ^ sign on top of different letters. Felipe writes about mathematics, and such compound characters are very necessary for the type of writing he does.
Some compound characters are already available within Word. These depend on the typefaces you use in your document; you can easily insert special compound characters by using the Symbol dialog box. Select the character you want, and then click on Insert.
If there is not a ready-made compound character, you can use Word's special fields to synthesize your own. For instance, if you want to place the ^ symbol over the top of the letter N, then you can follow these steps:
If you want to change the characters that make up the compound character, change the N in step 3 and use a different character in step 5.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12076) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Creating Compound Characters.
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2024-06-20 10:36:25
Paul Stregevsky
Tomek,
I see the gray banner on this page in Chrome for Windows. It must fail to render in MacOS or IOS. (see Figure 1 below)
Figure 1. Gray banner seen atop this page in Chrome for Windows 11
2024-06-18 18:03:54
Tomek
@Paul Stregevsky:
No, it no longer says that (regarding it may not work for Mac). I remember vaguely it did in the past. Maybe Allen can consider adding this back.
2024-06-16 08:39:29
Paul Stregevsky
Philip,
It's mentioned in the shaded box at the top of this page.
2024-06-16 01:24:32
Philip
This tip is Windows specific, doesn't work on Mac. Probably useful to mention that at the start ?
2024-06-15 09:54:19
Robert Love
Minor correction: This website silently mangled my earlier comment. The "^" very near the end should read ampersand-hash-136-semicolon. I should also clarify that the set of character codes supported by the ALT+0000 method is more properly described as the Windows Codepage 1252, since there are various competing definitions of "Extended Ascii" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_ASCII).
A significant weakness of the overprint method described in this tip is that, as far as I know, you can't search for the compound character. If anyone knows better I'd be grateful to hear it.
2024-06-15 09:17:02
Robert Love
For me this doesn't work unless the NumLock key on the numeric keypad is down. I am using Word 2010 under Windows 7, but I see from googling that other configurations are like this too. This restriction applies only to Word. ALT+0000 character codes work with or without NumLock in other applications, such as Notepad and Thunderbird.
These ALT+0000 character codes are rather obscure. They are not Unicode, but (Extended) Ascii (https://www.ascii-code.com/). I find Unicode more convenient, especially for typing a character found in Character Map. So what also works is Word's ALT+X feature. For the circumflex mentioned here, instead of ALT+0136 you can type 02C6 followed immediately by ALT+X, which replaces the 02C6 with a circumflex. Typing ALT+X again reverses the substitution. 02C6 is, of course, the hex code for the Unicode character Modifier Letter Circumflex Accent, (decimal 136 in Ascii, ˆ in HTML).
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here:
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