You can insert special characters and symbols into your documents from most OS X text and word processing applications. I’ve received a few e-mails asking me how to I insert the ⌘ character, as well as other Mac characters into my posts. I do so using the built-in Characters application.

From most word processors, choose Edit > Special Characters from the menu.

Next, click the category in the left pane and then double-click the character that you want to insert into your document.

Note that you can specify which categories appear by default in the Characters list pane. For instance, the Technical Symbols category – the one that contains Mac symbols such as ⌘, ⌥, ⏏ and ⌦ – does not appear by default. To add a new category to the left pane, click the Action button on the left-hand corner of the window and choose Customize List from the menu.

Then, click the checkbox for the category you wish to add to the list pane.

When finished, click Done.

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